A vs. An Indefinite Articles in English Basic English Grammar

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hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and i answer them

maybe okay let’s get to your first

question

first question this week comes from

it’s memart hello it’s me martz it’s

remark says

when do we use the preposition to in a

sentence

in these examples why do we use two she

is now

engaged to her longtime boyfriend and

i gave birth to two healthy boys okay

this is a big question and a big answer

there are lots of reasons

that we use two in sentences let’s talk

about a few

first we use two to describe movement so

for example i went to france

or he went to the office we use two

before the destination the place that we

are traveling

to so we use two to talk about movement

we also use two in time expressions like

she worked from nine to five it means

until

in these cases or she jogged from three

to four

so we can use it to express time in this

way

we also use two when we’re using the

infinitive form of a verb in a sentence

so for a reminder the infinitive form of

a verb

is the base form like the dictionary

form the kind that you find in the

dictionary

so that’s two plus the verb there are

many cases there are many different

grammar patterns many different

structures

in which we use the infinitive form so a

few examples of this

are we’re going to buy lunch and he

called to say hello

in other cases though the rules kind of

disappear a bit

they fade away it’s not so easy to apply

a simple rule

this is because these uses of two like

the ones that you’ve shared in your

example sentences

are actually from idioms or they’re

parts of phrasal verbs

these rules don’t apply however when we

look at two

in phrasal verbs and in idioms so

you have to remember these kind of like

separate vocabulary words you have to

memorize them

the same way that you would vocabulary

words unfortunately there isn’t a

clear-cut

rule for when to use two in cases like

these

so for example in your first example

sentence she got engaged to her longtime

boyfriend

the two in that sense is part of the

get engaged to expression that’s an

idiom to get engaged

to someone that’s a set phrase in the

second example

sentence she gave birth to two healthy

boys

two in that sentence is part of the

expression give birth to

so there are lots of set expressions

phrasal verbs and

idioms that use two and you just have to

memorize them

like vocabulary words they’re like kind

of independent expressions independent

phrases that you need to think about

so this is a quick introduction to a few

uses of

two and also just consider that

sometimes there’s not

really a specific rule for the reason

why two

is used in an expression it’s just the

vocabulary word or it’s just the idiom

so a good way perhaps to practice this

is

read i would suggest reading and over

time

naturally you’ll start to kind of get a

feel for the expressions that used to

and the expressions that used by or at

or in or on and so on

similar issues exist with other

prepositions for sure

so i would suggest reading as much as

possible to help you identify

the most natural choice of preposition

you can read novels you can read news

articles you can read

social media posts whatever make sure

you’re reading a lot

and then you’ll kind of over time as i

said get a feel for what

should be uh the preposition used so i

hope that this helps you i hope this was

a good introduction to a few cases in

which

it is kind of rule-based use of two but

also

just to give you a heads up uh give you

some information about these expressions

that used to

uh as kind of a set expression so

thanks very much for the question all

right let’s move on to your next

question

next question comes from vinai hi venai

binay

says how do we talk about simultaneous

events in present continuous tense

okay to talk about two or more

events happening right now so two or

more things that are happening in the

present moment

you can try a pattern like one of these

i’m listening to music and working at

the same time

are you cooking and cleaning right now

he’s watching me while operating the

camera

so a reminder these patterns are used

for two actions that are happening

right now at the same time if you want

to talk about actions that happen

regularly like habits you need to use

simple present tense we don’t use that

ing form

for regular actions we can only use

these patterns

for actions that are happening now so

please keep this in mind but i hope that

this helps you describe

simultaneous actions in the present

thanks very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from nelly hi nelly nelly says hi

alicia

what is the meaning of educated guesses

thank you yeah sure great question an

educated guess

is a guest that we make after doing

research or after getting some

information about the topic

so we can compare this to just a guess

so a guess

is just something that we come up with

we have an

idea about something we share it we make

a guess about something

an educated guess sounds like something

we actually thought about we tried to

find information

to make our guests more accurate so for

example

if i asked you who do you think will be

the next president of the united states

and you have no idea

but you want to guess you could say a

famous person like beyonce or something

so that’s probably not a good strategy

making a guest like that though

president beyonce does sound pretty

awesome

so making an educated guess on the other

hand

would require you to do some research

who are the candidates

what is their position on various issues

are they popular or not so after doing

that kind of research

and then sharing a guess like choosing

one of the candidates

that would be an example of making an

educated guess

so this is the difference between an

educated guest and just

a guess keep in mind that lots of people

like to pretend to make an educated

guess when they’re really just guessing

so keep this in mind too

i hope that this helps you thanks for

the question okay let’s move on to your

next question

next question comes from lin hi lin lin

says hi alicia i know we use

a when it is followed by a consonant

sound and use

an when it is followed by a vowel sound

but i heard we pronounce a as a or

a depending on the consonant or vowel

sound condition as well

i just put these rules together and i’m

confused now what’s the difference

for example he is an or a

a european person or this is a

or a one-way street thank you so much ah

sure okay first let’s review the uh

or a and and rules we use

the indefinite article a or

uh before a word that begins

with a consonant sound we use

and before a word that begins with a

vowel sound

so a key difference here is sound

be careful this has nothing to do with

spelling

so for example an hour we use

and there because hour begins with a

vowel sound

it starts with an h yes in spelling but

the sound is a vowel sound

our so this is the rule for using a

or a and an to answer your question

however there actually isn’t a rule for

when native speakers use the a

or a pronunciation it’s completely up to

the speaker so don’t worry about what

you’ve studied you don’t have to change

anything there

so just keep in mind that native

speakers will use

a pronunciation for emphasis

sometimes so we do this when we want to

emphasize

that like there’s a key difference in

some situation

so here’s an example let’s imagine you

are looking for your phone

and i find one here and i say hey

i found this phone you might reply and

you might say

you found a phone you didn’t find

my phone so the reason that a native

speaker would choose to use the

a pronunciation there is to emphasize

that i just found this phone in

particular i found a

phone yes it belongs to the category

phone but it’s not the speaker’s phone

so the speaker is making a contrast

there they want to like clearly show the

difference between

a phone and my phone this desired thing

and this thing you found

are different so that’s the reason that

they would use this a emphasis

so that pronunciation as emphasis in

that situation

let’s try one more example imagine we’re

co-workers in this situation

and i’m looking for a file an important

file

and you offer to help me you find a file

that you think is correct

and you show it to me and i go uh yeah

you found

a file but it’s not the file

so in that case i’m contrasting i’m

showing a difference i’m emphasizing a

difference

between this file you found and the file

that i’m looking for in this case i’m

using the file

to mean the file that we both know about

this file that we both are looking for

right now

i’m using the a pronunciation to draw

attention

to kind of point out that this thing and

this thing are different

so when i say a pronunciation might be

used for emphasis

this is what i mean so in sum you can

use either a

or a it really doesn’t matter it’s up to

you but you might hear native speakers

using that

a pronunciation for the article when

they’re trying to emphasize a key

difference between this thing

and another thing so i hope that this

helps you thanks for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from godson ernst pierre luis

hello godson ernst uh godson ernst says

i often hear

two different pronunciations of the word

neither and today i’d like to know which

one is right for me please

thank you aha the answer is both both

neither and neither are both totally

acceptable pronunciations

there’s actually a famous george

gershwin song if you’re familiar with

george gershwin he wrote rhapsody in

blue he had some musicals anyway

he and his brother ira did some like

cool musical stuff but there’s a very

famous example

in their work that references this issue

so they have neither and neither is good

examples or like potato

and potato both acceptable or tomato and

tomato so there are different

pronunciations for a few words and you

might know some more

but they’re both fine they’re both

acceptable you can use neither or

neither

i would say personally that probably in

today’s american english we use

neither and for the other words that i

mentioned tomato and potato

those are the more common pronunciations

but you can still use the other

pronunciations if you like

so that would be my personal

recommendation but you can use

both they’re both fine so i hope that

this helps you thanks for the question

okay that is everything that i have for

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