I'd like to explain the difference between articles in English :) Part 1: "A" and "An" I recently received a message with a question about English articles of speech. The writer asks about the differences between "'a', 'an' and 'the.' When in English don't [people] use an article with a noun? For me, this is a very complicated thing in the grammar." I thought maybe others would like to read about this, too, so I decided to answer him through a notebook entry. Articles in English are not useless. They actually have a very useful purpose, and when you know the purpose for each type of article it is much easier to know when to use which one. Like any language rule, however, there will be a few exceptions that you just have to memorize. :) IN GENERAL this is how to know when to use an article, and which article to use: The difference between "a" and "an:" these are actually the same article. "An" is used instead of "a" when it precedes a noun that begins with a vowel. You would never say "a apple" or "a animal." Rather, you would say "an apple" or "an animal." The only time this can become confusing is when you communicate with someone who speaks "British English" - sometimes they ignore "h," a consonant, at the beginning of words. For example, Americans say "a horse" but someone from England might say "an horse." This is not always the case (it depends on the speaker's accent), but it's just something you might need to know someday. This small irregularity is really not too important to remember. :) The purpose of "a" and "an:" use "a" or "an" when discussing a noun (see, I used "a") that is singular, yet vague. I'm going to use the sentence "she lives by ___ river" to demonstrate my point. If I say "she lives by a river," I indicate that my intention is not to communicate exactly which river she lives by, but rather to communicate the fact that she lives by some sort of river. Or, perhaps I don't know very much about the river she lives by (I used "the" just now because I wanted to indicate that I am talking about a specific river now - the one I already brought up to you, the one in my sentence, the one she lives by), so I want to communicate that the river is either not very important for what I am trying to communicate, or that it is still vague in my mind - I could be communicating both of these things, too. OK this is getting to be too long, so please read my next notebook entry for a continuation of this lesson. :)