シンプルなルールで「a/an」 や 「the」を攻略

冠詞の「a/an」 と 「the」 の使い方で悩んでしまうことはありませんか？特に記事を書く時には注意が必要ですが、シンプルなルールを適用すれば大丈夫！

Knowing when and how to use the articles a, an, and the can be tricky for students learning English. It's especially challenging for students who don't have articles in their native language.

If you find a, an, and the difficult to use correctly, check out this simple guide to English articles. These are not all the rules, but if you keep them in mind it will help you to speak correctly nearly all the time.

How to use articles

The articles a/an and the introduce nouns (a person, place, thing, event, idea) to the listener or reader. They're used to indicate whether the noun is:

• general, in which case a/an is used; or
• specific, in which case you use the.

Articles can also indicate whether the noun is:

• new information to the reader or listener, which uses a/an; or 
• information that is already known, which uses the.

A/An

Here are some examples of when to use a/an, either to speak about something generally, or about something that is new to the listener.

1. "Let’s read a book."—You're talking about any book, not one book in particular.
2. “There’s an emergency! Somebody call 911!"—This is the first time the listener is hearing about the emergency. Also, we're talking about an emergency in general, since no specific details are provided.
3. "See that man over there? That's Tom. He's a teacher."—Since this is the first time you're learning that Tom is a teacher, we use a to signal that it's new information.
4. "Could you get me a cup of coffee, please?"—This is the first time the request for coffee is being introduced to the listener.

The

We use the to talk about something in a specific way, and to refer to information that's already known or has been discussed previously. 

We also use the to refer to subjects that are common knowledge. 

Let’s look at a few examples of the in a sentence:

1. "Let's read the book that we read last night."—You already know which book I'm referring to.
2. "Remember the emergency I told you about earlier? It was on the news!"— We say "the emergency" because it's known to you based on the previous example. Also, "the news" is common knowledge. 
3. "That's Tom, the teacher. You met him yesterday."—You're referring to specific information from earlier.
4. "I was drinking the coffee you got for me, and someone bumped into me on the train and made me spill it all down the front of my shirt!"—You already know about the coffee from earlier; you also know about trains as common knowledge. And we use the to describe where the coffee spilled since "the front" is a specific part of my shirt.

Usage gap

The is used more than twice as often as a/an. Here's a graph showing the gap in usage:

The percentage on the left shows how often the word appears in English books, according to Google's Ngram viewer.

So, if you look back at your writing and see that you use a/an way more often, it may be a good sign you need to correct some articles. Also, if you are completely at a loss and you have to guess, then the is a safer guess. 

Now that you know how to use articles, try some writing! Just pick a topic, like your day yesterday, and send it in for homework after your lesson. Remember to pay special attention to the articles.
—
911—the phone number for emergency services in North America.
at a loss—to have no idea about something.