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a, an and the

Articlesa, an and the

Articles/Determiners in English

Determiners and quantifiers are words we use in front of nouns. We use determiners to identify things (this book, my sister) and we use quantifiers to say how much or how many (a few people, a lot of problems). The most common ones you should know are: A, AN and THE.

  1. Definite Article : the
  2. Indefinite Articles : a, an
A, AN, THE - Articles in English

Indefinite Articles: A and AN

We use the indefinite article, a/an, with singular nouns when the listener/reader does not know exactly which one we are referring to:

  • Police are searching for a 14-year-old girl.

We also use it to show that the person or thing is one of a group:

  • She is a student at Jacques-Rousseau High School.
  • Police have been looking for a 14-year-old girl who has been missing since Friday.
  • Jenny Brown is a pupil at Jacques-Rousseau High School. She is 5'6" tall, with short, blonde hair. When she left home, she was wearing a blue jacket, a blue and white shirt, dark blue jeans and blue shoes.
  • Anyone who has information should contact the Longueuil Police Department at 450-463-7011.


NOTE:We do not use an indefinite article with specific nouns, plural nouns or non-count nouns:

  • Contact the Longueuil Police Department. (specific)
  • She was wearing blue shoes. (plural noun)
    She has short, blonde hair. (non-count noun)
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I eat a grapefruit every morning for breakfast.

A before a consonant sound.


*sometimes A can be replaced with ONE

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McGill is a university in Montreal.

U is a vowel, but the sound at the beginning of UNIVERSITY requires an A.


Similarly, HOUR takes AN. In English, articles go by sound and not spelling.


I will leave school in an hour when I finish my homework.

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An eggplant is purple on the outside.

AN before a vowel sound


Is an eggplant a vegetable or a fruit?

Definite Article: THE

The definite article the is the most frequent word in English.

We use the definite article in front of a noun when we believe the listener/reader knows exactly what we are referring to:

  • because there is only one;
  • because there is only one in that context;
  • because we have already mentioned it;
  • to say something about all the things about a noun in general;
  • to refer to a system or service.
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The Pope is visiting Russia.

There is only one Pope in the Catholic faith. In this picture Pope Francis is visiting the President of Russia. Putin is on the left and Pope Francis is on the right.

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The moon is very bright tonight.

Earth only has one moon. The planet Jupiter has 79 moons.
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Who is the Prime Minister of Canada?

Each province has a premier, but there is only one Prime Minister in Canada. In 2020, the Prime Minister is Justin Trudeau. His father was also a Prime Minister. He was the 15th Prime Minister.
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Joe plays the piano really well.

His sister plays the guitar and his brother plays the drums.
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The heart pumps blood around the body.

The purpose of your heart is to pump blood to the organs and tissues of your body that need the oxygen and nutrients it carries. Oxygen-rich blood is pumped out of the left side of your heart into the arteries to these tissues and organs.
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You should tell the police.

Mental or physical abuse is not acceptable. You should contact the police or an organization that can help you!

An example of a helpful organization is Carrefour pour elle.

There are also other kinds of determiners but you don't need to know them right now.


  1. Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
  2. Pronouns and Possessive Determiners : my, your, his, her, its, our, their
  3. Quantifiers : a few, a little, much, many, a lot of, most, some, any, enough
  4. Numbers : one, ten, thirty
  5. Distributives : all, both, half, either, neither, each, every
  6. Difference Words : other, another
  7. Pre-Determiners : such, what, rather, quite
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Anglais pré-collégial © 2023 by Rebecca Peters, Cégep Édouard-Montpetit/Entente Canada-Québec is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/