Definite and indefinite article in english

Definite and indefinite articles

What is an article?
Basically, articles are either definite or indefinite. They combine to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. * The definite article is the. * The indefinite article is a / an.
The indefinite article a or an:
The article a / an is used when we don't specify the things or people we are talking about: * I met a friend. * I work in a factory in New York. * I borrowed a pencil from a passenger sitting next to me.
The indefinite article a is used before a consonant sound: * a dog. * a pilot * a teacher. * a university
NOTE:
Although 'university' starts with the vowel 'u', it is not pronounced as such. It is pronounced as a consonant sound /ju:.niv3:.si.ti/
The indefinite article AN is used before a vowel sound: * an engineer. * an elephant. * an athlete
The definite article THE:
It's used when the speaker talks about a specific object that both the person speaking and the listener know. * The car over there is fast. * The president of the United States is giving a speech tonight.
When we speak of something or someone for the first time we use a or an, the next time we repeat that object we use the definite article the. * I live in a house. The house is quite old and has four bedrooms. * I ate in a Chinese restaurant. The restaurant was very good.
No article:
1. Do not use an article with countries, states, counties or provinces, lakes and mountains except when the country is a collection of states such as "The United States". * He lives in Washington near Mount Rainier. * They live in Northern British Columbia. * They climbed Mount Everst.
2. we do not normally use an article with plurals and uncountable nouns to talk about things in general.: * He writes books. * She likes sweets. * Do you like jazz music? * She ate bread with butter in the morning.
Countable and uncountable