How to Use The Articles in English Grammar
Hi, I’m Justin.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn about using
the.
What language do you speak?
If your language has a word like the, then
the isn’t too difficult.
There are some small differences, but you
don’t have to think about it too much.
However, if you speak a language which doesn’t
have a word like the, then learning how to
use the is a nightmare!
This lesson is made more for people whose
native language doesn’t have a word like
the, although we hope that speakers of all
languages will find it helpful.
Learning about articles and the is the only
grammar topic I’ve seen which regularly
makes students angry.
Any time I have to teach someone about articles,
I know they’re going to go through an angry
stage.
Why is this?
It’s because there are hundreds of rules
about using the.
Every rule has exceptions (of course, it’s
English!)
Sometimes, the rules overlap and you don’t
know which one to use.
We’re not going to try to cover all of the
rules in this class.
If you really want a headache, you can find
a grammar book and try to read and learn all
of them.
Instead of giving you rules which you can
read in a grammar book, we’re going to give
you some practical tips that we’ve used
with students and which work.
You’ll see six tips and one simple technique
you can use in your written English.
These tips and tricks are easy to remember
and use; you won’t need to study for hours
or memorise lots of complex rules.
Watch the video to the end, and you can start
using these ideas today.
Let’s start with a general question: what
does the mean?
Have you ever thought about this?
What does the mean?
What does it do?
If I say to you:
Show me the book.
What does the mean?
Why do I say the book and not a book?
The in this sentence shows that you—the
listener—know which book I’m talking about.
It shows that I’m talking about a specific
book, and I know you know which one I mean.
That’s what the means: it shows that you’re
talking about something specific.
You can think of the as a ‘pointing’ word,
like this or that.
When you use the before a noun, you’re ‘pointing’
to a specific thing and saying, ‘that one’.
So that’s the basic meaning of the.
Keep this in mind, because it’s useful to
remember these basic points if things get
confusing.
Let’s see how you can use these ideas.
Let’s start with some examples:
Can you open the window, please?
Is that the woman you were telling me about?
The Taj Mahal is really worth going to see.
When you look at these sentences, they look
completely different, right?
But there is a connection.
Can you see the connection?
Think about why you use the in these sentences.
If I’m talking to you, in all of these three
situations, you know which one I mean.
For example, if you say, Can you open the
window, please, then we’re in the same room,
and it will be obvious which window you mean.
Sure, there are many windows in the world,
but if we’re in the same room, then we know
which window you’re talking about.
You can see the same idea in these sentences:
Where’s the bathroom?
I’m going to the shop.
In both of these cases, we use the because
it’s obvious which one you mean.
If you’re at someone’s house, and you
ask, Where’s the bathroom, we know which
bathroom you mean: the bathroom in the house
where you are/
If you say, I’m going to the shop, again
you mean that whoever you’re talking to
will understand which shop you mean.
Probably, you mean the local shop—one you
go to often.
Let’s look at our second sentence.
If I ask you, Is that the woman you were telling
me about, you know who I mean.
But here, the reason is different.
You know who I mean because we were talking
about her before.
You were telling me about her.
So, this is our second idea.
You can use the if the person you’re talking
to will remember which one you mean.
Here are a couple more examples of this:
What did you think of the film?
Do you remember the hotel we stayed at in
Berlin?
In both of these examples, you’re referring
to some kind of shared experience.
What did you think of the film?
–> Why do you use the?
Because you’re either talking about a film
we saw together, or a film we’ve talked
about before.
Either way, when you ask this, you use the
because the person you’re talking to will
know which film you mean.
Do you remember the hotel we stayed at in
Berlin?
–> We both stayed at the same hotel, so you
know which hotel I mean.
Okay, let’s come back to our third original
sentence.
If you say, The Taj Mahal is really worth
going to see, why do you use the?
It’s because there’s only one Taj Mahal.
We know which one you mean, because there’s
only one!
Let’s see some more examples of this idea:
The moon is so beautiful tonight!
It was the happiest day of my life.
In both of these examples, you use the because
you’re talking about one of something.
The person you’re talking to will know which
one you mean, because the thing you’re talking
about is unique.
The Earth only has one moon, so we say the
moon.
You can have many happy days in your life,
but only one can be the happiest, so you say
the happiest day of my life.
So, you’ve seen three important ideas about
using the in this section:
Use the for things around you, where it’s
obvious which thing you mean.
Use the to refer to shared experiences—things
you’ve talked about before or done together.
Use the when something is unique.
These are practical, general ideas which will
help you to use the correctly in English.
Next, let’s look at another simple rule
that can help you.
Here’s a good rule you can use, especially
in your written English.
If a noun is singular and countable, it needs
some kind of determiner.
A singular, countable noun can’t stand by
itself.
Okay, this isn’t specifically about using
the, because a determiner could be something
else, maybe a or this or that, or something
else.
But, it’s often helpful if you’re trying
to decide whether to use the or not.
Let’s look at an example:
Manager told us more about plan for New Year’s
party.
Maybe you can already see that this sentence
doesn’t look right.
Let’s apply our rule.
Can you remember it?
If a noun is singular and countable, then
it needs some kind of determiner, like the,
a, this, that, and so on.
So, look at our sentence.
How many nouns are there?
The first noun is manager.
Is this singular?
Yes.
Is it countable?
Let’s see: one manager, two managers, three
managers…
Yes, it’s countable.
So, it needs a determiner.
It can’t stand by itself.
Probably, whoever says this sentence knows
which manager they’re talking about.
That means we can use the.
What about plan?
Is it singular?
Is it countable?
Yes, and yes, so again, it can’t stay like
it is.
Here, we say that the manager told us more.
That means you already knew something about
this plan.
That means you can use the.
You know which plan the manager is talking
about.
What about New Year’s party?
Is it singular?
Is it countable?
Yes, and yes.
So, you need something.
How many New Year’s parties can there be
each year?
I mean, technically, you could have more than
one.
But generally, one company will just have
one New Year’s party.
If there’s just one, then you know which
one the manager’s talking about.
So again, you can use the.
The manager told us more about the plan for
the New Year’s party.
Let’s do one more example:
Government should do more to help elderly
people.
Think about this sentence.
Where are the nouns?
Do they need determiners or articles?
Let’s use our test.
The first noun is government.
Is it singular?
Yes.
Is it countable?
One government, two governments…
Yes, it is.
So it needs a determiner.
Should we use the, or something else?
There are many governments in the world, but
whenever you talk about the government, you
mean ‘the government in your country.’
So, it’s clear which government you mean.
That means you can use the:
There’s one more noun: elderly people.
Is it singular?
No.
So, it doesn’t need a determiner.
It can stand by itself.
However, just because it doesn’t need one
doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have one.
You still need to think: should you say the
elderly people?
Here, you’re talking about elderly people
in general.
When you talk about things in general, you
don’t use the.
So the sentence is now correct.
The government should do more to help elderly
people.
The test that you’ve seen in this section
isn’t a magic spell.
You still need to think about where to use
the or not.
However, it’s simple and it does help.
Use this in your written English and you will
make fewer mistakes with the.
Trust me—we’ve seen this work for many
students.
Okay, so now you’ve seen some simple but
important ideas to help you decide when to
use the.
But, part of using the correctly is knowing
when not to use the.
So, let’s talk about that!
We just mentioned one case where you shouldn’t
use the.
Do you remember?
Don’t use the if you’re talking about
things in general.
For example:
Greek food is both healthy and tasty.
–> You’re talking about all Greek food,
in general.
I hate shopping for clothes.
–> I hate shopping for all clothes, all the
time.
I’m not talking about some specific clothes.
Football is more popular than basketball in
most countries.
–> Again, everything here is general.
You’re talking about football in general,
basketball in general, and countries in general.
Nothing is specific here.
So that’s your first important rule.
Don’t use the if you’re talking about
things in general.
This is a really solid rule.
It works well, so you should definitely remember
it.
There’s another useful point here: don’t
use the with most names.
When we say ‘names’, we mean nouns that
you’d write with a capital letter.
This works most of the time.
There are a lot of exceptions, but if you
remember, ‘don’t use the with names’,
you’ll be right more often than not.
Obviously, if you know the detailed rules,
then that’s better.
However, if you’re in a situation where
you don’t know whether to use the or not,
then use this rule.
It works most of the time.
So, this means: don’t use the with people’s
names:
I met Jamie.
Don’t use the with names of cities or countries:
Stockholm is the capital of Sweden.
Don’t use the with names of streets or other
city features:
Queen’s Park is near Broad Street.
Don’t use the with the names of schools,
companies, universities or other institutions:
Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to start
Microsoft.
I know what some of you are thinking…
What about The United States?
What about the Hilton?
What about…?
Yes, of course there are exceptions.
There are exceptions to everything!
That’s not the point.
Remember what we’re trying to do here: this
is a simple trick that you can carry in your
head and which is easy to use.
It will work most of the time.
There’s one more simple tip here: don’t
use the with another determiner.
Determiners include this, that, these, those,
possessive adjectives like my, your, his,
or her as well as quantifiers like many, much,
a lot of, each, every, and so on.
So you can’t use the in examples like:
I like this one more than that one.
Is this your bag or is it hers?
I want to spend lots of time with
every person here.
Okay, quick review:
Don’t use the if you’re talking about
things in general.Don’t use the with most names (but remember
there are many exceptions to this).Don’t use the with another determiner.
From this lesson, you’ve got six rules:
three rules about when to use the, and three
rules about when not to use the.
You also saw a simple test to check if a noun
needs an article or not: is the noun singular?
Is it countable?
If yes and yes, it needs a determiner, possibly
the.
If you find it difficult to use the correctly,
take these six rules and this test, and try
using them.
We hope these tips are simple enough that
you can remember them and start using them
right now.
If you do, you will use the more accurately,
and you will make fewer mistakes.
Remember, these tips have helped many of our
students, and they can help you, too!
Also, if you want more practice, check out
the full version of this lesson on our website:
Oxford Online English dot com.
There’s also a quiz to help you practice
using the.
Thanks for watching!