The indefinite article: 'a' and 'an'
Level: beginner
We use the indefinite article, a/an, with singular nouns when the listener/reader does not know exactly which one we are referring to:
Police are searching for a 14-year-old girl.
We also use it to show that the person or thing is one of a group:
She is a pupil at London Road School.
Police have been looking for a 14-year-old girl who has been missing since Friday.
Jenny Brown is a pupil at London Road School. She is 1.6 metres tall, with short, blonde hair. When she left home, she was wearing a blue jacket, a blue and white blouse, dark blue jeans and blue shoes.
Anyone who has information should contact the local police on 0800 349 781.
We do not use an indefinite article with plural nouns or uncount nouns:
She was wearing blue shoes. (plural noun)
She has short, blonde hair. (uncount noun)
- The indefinite article 1
- The indefinite article 2
- The indefinite article 3
We use a before a consonant sound:
| a banana (starts with /b/) | a university (starts with /j/) |
and an before a vowel sound:
| an orange (starts with /o/) | an hour (starts with /au/) |
Note that the choice of a or an depends on sound, not spelling.
- The indefinite article 4
Hello omarmohamed99,
I would suggest you read our Articles 1 and Articles 2 pages. The Cambridge Dictionary also has a long entry on articles that could also be useful.
If you have any specific questions about a specific sentence, please don't hesitate to ask us.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Floyd,
It's helpful to consider the difference between a few and few first of all.
We use few when we want to emphasise that there are not enough. For example, if I say I have few friends then I am suggesting that I am rather lonely.
We use a few when we want to emphasise that there is a satisfactory number. For example, if I say I have a few friends then I am suggesting that I am happy with what I have.
Given this, very works well with few, showing a lack of something. However, it does not conceptually fit with a few in the same way that we don't say very enough. It's not that it is impossible to say a very few for rhetorical effect, but it is unusual.
I hope that helps to clarify it for you.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Or Yahalom,
Do you mean the 'a' in 'a few notable differences'? In this case, 'a few' is a determiner that goes before plural nouns. In this case, it's as if 'few' means something like 'group of several'; even though it looks singular, it has a plural meaning and is only used before plural nouns, which then take plural verbs.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Crokong,
The phrase 'What a...!' is a fixed expression showing amazement at the scale of something or how extreme something is. We don't break up phrases like this an assign concrete meaning to each individual part, but rather understand the phrase as a whole as a unit.
The meaning can be understood as something like 'What an amazing example of .... that is!'
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Crokong,
Yes, that's correct. The construction can be used for both positive (What a performance!) and negative (What an idiot!) reactions.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Crokong,
I'd recommend thinking of it this way: 'what a ...!' shows a strong opinion or feeling, which can be positive or negative.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello amrita_enakshi,
'an' is the correct form here, since the word 'English' begins with a vowel sound.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello RamMin,
Please see Peter's response to another user who asked this same question. He explains this difference in detail there.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team