A, An, The — Flashcards

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Articles are special words that come before nouns to tell us whether the noun is specific or general. There are three articles: 'a', 'an', and 'the'. For example: 'a cat', 'an apple', 'the book'.

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'a' is used before words that begin with a consonant sound, and 'an' is used before words that begin with a vowel sound. It's about the sound, not the spelling. For example: 'a dog' (d is consonant so…

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We use 'a' before singular nouns that start with a consonant sound. For example: 'a ball', 'a tiger', 'a cup'. Remember, it's the sound that matters. So we say 'a uniform' because 'uniform' starts wit…

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We use 'an' before singular nouns that start with a vowel sound. For example: 'an apple', 'an egg', 'an umbrella'. Even if a word starts with a vowel letter but sounds like a consonant, we don't use '…

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We say 'an hour' because the 'h' in 'hour' is silent. So the word starts with the vowel sound 'our' (like 'our bag'). Since it begins with a vowel sound, we use 'an'.

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We say 'a uniform' because even though 'uniform' starts with the letter 'u', it is pronounced with a 'yoo' sound (like 'you'). This is a consonant sound, so we use 'a', not 'an'.

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Vowels are the letters a, e, i, o, u. All other letters are consonants. But for articles, we care about the sound, not just the letter. For example, 'x-ray' starts with 'x' (consonant letter) but soun…

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We use 'the' when talking about a specific noun that is already known to the listener. For example: 'I saw a dog. The dog was barking.' Here, 'the dog' refers to the specific dog we just mentioned.