First of all 'A' is singular only, 'the' can be singular and plural You can't say 'A dogs' or 'A flowers' but you can say 'A dog' and 'A flowers' I think 'the' is more specific say I saw a dog i might say 'I just saw a dog' but say it was a particular dog that i might have talked about before I might say 'I saw the dog' If i said 'pick up a book' to my friend they would pick up any but if i said 'pick up the book' they would probably know which one i meant because we might have talked about it before or 'I ate an apple' - It could be any random apple but if i said 'I ate the apple' It would be a specific apple i might of had to eat I hope you understand, message me if you don't c: Goodluck!

OK, the first thing is that you DO need articles. Omitting them is a very bad idea, as it makes your sentence confusing due to lack of information. They are useful for not only marking nouns in a sentence (along with possessives), but also telling us a bit about that noun. With "a", it means a single example of the noun. This also means that in reality many of these examples exist - the speaker/writer is giving any possible example. With "the", both the speaker/writer and the listener/reader know which thing is meant. It's either already been introduced (using "a" to begin with), or it is the only possible thing, ie. there's only one in existence. If you have a single noun and no article, the listener hears the given name of a person or a place. You can use "the" with plural nouns to mean a specific group, and a plural (or uncountable) noun without an article means you are talking in general.

1. "a" is used if you are talking about something for the first time. Example: "A bird flew into my garden". After that, if you're still talking about that bird, you can refer to it as "the bird". Example: "Then, the bird ate a worm." 2. "an" used before vowels, you're right. Example: "I ate an apple". But, it can be used before a word beginning with a silent H even though its a consonant. Example: "I have an hour before school", because it sounds like a vowel at the beginning since its silent. Also, if a vowel at the beginning has a "Y" or a "W" sound like "University" or "One" then you need to use just "a" not "an". Example: "I work at a University". or "I will buy a one-way ticket". 3. "The" has been explained in number 1. But basically you use it if you're talking about something in particular. Example: "I went to the store in the next village. The journey lasted 20 minutes." because you're talking about the journey you specifically just mentioned. Hope I explained it okay ^^; Let me know?

This is a classic question for Russian speakers. You will get some very superficial answers on here, but ultimately you should find a good English grammar and work through the material and do the exercises, etc. if you want to develop a good instinct with English articles.

'an' is generally used before the vowel. 'a' is generally used before the consonant. and 'the' is used before proper noun or specific noun. ask me if more detail is required.