Category: Class

Level: Beginner-Intermediate

Form of Article “the”

The definite article “the” is the most frequently used word in English.

We use the definite article in front of a noun when the speaker believes that the listener already knows what he is referring to.

Uses of the article “the”

The definite article ‘the’ is used in the following cases:

• because there is only one

The sun is very bright.
Who is the president of Spain?

• because there is only one in that context

My family lives in a house next to the church. (= the church in our town)
Mom, can I borrow the car? (= the family’s car)

• because it has already been mentioned

A young man tried to rob a jewelry shop in Tampa. The man used a big rock to smash the windows of the shop.

• with a superlative adjective

He is the tallest kid in our class.
It is the oldest house in the village.

• to talk about musical instruments and dances

Jerry plays the guitar really well.
Can you do the foxtrot?

• to refer to a system or service

How long does it take on the train?
She heard it on the radio.

• with countries whose names include words like kingdom, states or republic

the United Kingdom
the People’s Republic of China

• with countries which have plural nouns as their names

the Netherlands
the Philippines

• with geographical features, such as canals, oceans, groups of islands, seas, rivers, and mountain ranges

the Amazon
the Himalayas

• with works of art or well-known buildings

the Mona Lisa
the Empire State Building

• We do not use the definite article with names.

Robert Downey Jr. played Iron Man.
Madrid is the capital of Spain.
Japan is in Asia.

Other English grammar lessons can be found here.

We use quantifiers such as much, many, little, few, a lot and plenty when we want to give someone information about the number of something.

Much can be used ONLY with noncount nouns:
Examples:
How much money do you have?
There isn’t much coffee left.

We can use a lot of or lots of with both count and non-count nouns:
Examples:
We have lots of time.
Jerry has lots of friends.
There was a lot of food.

Plenty of is a colloquial form which can also be used with both count and non-count nouns:
Examples:
We have plenty of time.
Joe has plenty of friends.
There was plenty of food.

Many and a few can be used ONLY with count nouns:
Examples:
She asked too many questions.
The crowd was silent for a few minutes after the play ended.

Remember:

We put a noun directly after a quantifier when we talk about members of a group in general.
Examples:
Few snakes are dangerous.
You can learn many things from books.

But if we are talking about members of a particular group, we also use “of the”.
Examples:
Few of the snakes in this zoo are dangerous.
Many of the kids played in the park.