Grammar

Articles: a, an and the

1,350 fill-in-the-gap exercises across 3 forms

The choice is between a, an, the and nothing. It depends on two things: whether the noun can be counted, and whether the reader already knows which one you mean.

Pick a form to practice

Two questions decide it

1. Can you count the noun? One book, two books — countable. Water, advice, money — uncountable, and they have no plural and never take a or an.

2. Does the listener already know which one? If yes, use the. If not, use a or an for a single countable noun, or nothing for plurals and uncountables.

a or an

The choice depends on sound, not spelling:

• a before a consonant sound: a book, a car, a university (/juː/), a European
• an before a vowel sound: an apple, an egg, an hour (silent h), an MP (/em/)

A university and an hour are the pair worth remembering: the first letter is not what matters.

the

Use it when the reader can identify the thing:

• mentioned before: I bought a lamp. The lamp doesn’t work.
• only one of it: the sun, the moon, the government
• made specific by what follows: the man in the gray coat
• superlatives and ordinals: the best, the first

no article at all

This is the option learners forget, because many languages do not have it. Use nothing for:

• general plurals: I like dogs. — dogs in general
• general uncountables: Coffee keeps me awake.
• most names: She lives in Norway and works for Google.
• meals, most transport, some places: after breakfast, by train, at home, at school

Compare at school (as a pupil) with at the school (at that building).

Nouns that are uncountable in English

These catch almost everyone, because they are countable in many other languages:

advice, information, news, furniture, luggage, equipment, research, knowledge, progress, work, money, bread, traffic, weather, homework

None of them takes a, and none has a plural. To count them, add a phrase: a piece of advice, two pieces of furniture, a bit of news.

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Mistakes to avoid