Explaining articles in the English language- Part 3: When to omit articles ...continued... Some other general rules about articles: -Don't use an article if you are referring to something in general. "I love to watch soccer (football) games" means that I love to watch any soccer games. Consider this dialogue between Sarah and Nathan: Sarah: I love to watch soccer games. Nathan: Any soccer games? Sarah: Well, no, mostly just European soccer. Americans don't take it seriously enough. Although Sarah admitted she likes to watch specific soccer games, it would have been incorrect for her to say "I love to watch the soccer games" unless she and Nathan had already been talking about Europe. Also, it would have been more correct, in that case, if she had said "I love to watch their soccer games." However, what Sarah could have said to Nathan with or without any previous context is "I love to watch European soccer games." This brings us to my next point. -Don't use articles when you use possessive adjectives: my, your, his, her, its, our, your, their; if you are going to replace possessive adjectives with an article, "the" will almost always be the appropriate article. For example, let's say my friend Nathan is using my friend Sarah's computer, but he doesn't realize it is her computer. He might say "I am almost finished using the computer." (Remember, he is talking about a specific computer, so he wouldn't say "a computer.") If he knows it's Sarah's computer, and if we have been discussing Sarah already, he could say "I am almost finished using her computer." If we have not been discussing Sarah, but Nathan knows it is her computer, he would say "I am almost finished using Sarah's computer." Unfortunately there are a lot of situations you will just have memorize when it comes to knowing when to leave out an article or use it. For example, we don't say "I'm going to watch the TV" even though we are going to watch a show on a particular TV. We think of "watching TV" as a general activity that doesn't need an article, so we say "I'm going to watch TV." Here are some more examples of sentences that don't need articles. Feel free to ask questions if you would like me to explain why! "I am going to play soccer outside." "I don't like to eat broccoli." "I love talking on skype, but I don't have much time to do it." "My brother refuses to read books." "I enjoy taking naps." OK feel free to comment or send me other questions!! :D