http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMuaJ6EsbSE
Articles are those tiny little words that we tend to forget about, you know, a, an, and the. These guys may seem pretty harmless, but if you use them incorrectly, they can get you into hot water.
We stick a, an, and the in front of nouns, like when we say, I’ll take a shower, I’d really like an apple, or please take me to the train station. Pretty easy? But many times, it’s not so easy. There are rules for using articles correctly in SEAE, but many situations call for idiom, not cut-in-drive rules.
Idiom is the grammar equivalent of tradition. It’s the way we say certain things. Just because that’s the way we do it. But couple of general rules do exist for a couple of articles, though.
First, a and an are called indefinite articles. We use an indefinite article before an unspecified noun. Say I want to say something about a car. I just don’t know which car I’m talking about. So I might write, I want a car. Here we use the indefinite article a.
What if we want to talk about an airplane? We’re not discussing about any particular airplane. In this case we can write, I want an airplane. Here we use the indefinite article an. The question is when do we use a and when do we use an?
We use the big Mr. ‘A’ before all the nouns that begin with consonants. Consonants are those one of the letters, like B C D F all those letters, you know and so on. But we use an “AN” before noun that begin with vowel. Vowels are those special letters, like A E I O and U. Wow actually, you need to check the sound of the word after the indefinite article. If it has a consonant sound, use ‘a’. If it has vowel sound, use ‘an’.
So when we write, I want a car, we use the indefinite article ‘a’, that’s because car starts with a c which has a consonant sound. But if we write I want an airplane, we use the indefinite article ‘an’, this is because airplane starts with a which has a vowel sound.
So our grammar guide is [see screen and listen]. Let’s not forget about other article: the. The is known as the ‘definite article’ and we use it when we know exactly what noun we’re writing about. So we can write, The ball is red, so we know exactly what ball we need: the red one.
So the
way to use the definite article ‘the’ is to stick in front of the nouns we know
definitely. Get it the definite
article?
HD - English
Lesson - Pronunciation - VULNERABLE #265
Usage:
- I’m hesitating to ask her out, because she is emotionally vulnerable right after her end of bad relationship with Mike a few weeks ago.
- She may be vulnerable to a new relationship right now.
- A protector can be greatly helpful to protect a player’s very vulnerable part, knee.