Author Topic: Articles really befuddle me.  (Read 4759 times)

Mwita Chacha

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Articles really befuddle me.
« on: June 02, 2012, 02:30:24 AM »
Spending two hours a week on visiting this forum has made my grammar understanding surge at a spectacular pace. Whereas I revel in my expanded knowledge on such structural grammar aspects as parallel construction, types of English verbs, verbals and all that, I can't do the same thing about articles. Indeed, I find learning articles the most difficult thing to do in my efforts to become proficient in English language, and their subtlety particulary substantial snag. My hope is that you would kindly provide me with the easiest and appropriate method of approaching the study of articles; otherwise, I am likely to spend a hundred years trying to make a meaning out of them. 
« Last Edit: June 04, 2012, 02:30:16 PM by Mwita Chacha »

Joe Carillo

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Re: Articles really befuddle me.
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2012, 10:03:35 AM »
Thanks for the compliment about the Forum as a learning resource for English grammar and usage! I want you to know that I greatly appreciate it.

As to the usage of articles in English, it’s admittedly tough at first to figure out precisely when to use “a,” “an,” and “the” to limit or give definiteness to the application of a noun. But once you learn the specific rules for choosing articles, using them correctly all the time becomes simplicity itself.

Instead of going into the details of article usage here, though, I recommend that you check out these three websites for their very thorough and comprehensive discussion of the subject:

1. “Articles” at Grammarly.com
2. “Articles” at the Frankfurt International School website’s “A Guide to Learning English”
3. “Grammar Rules for Articles” at English-at-Home.com

I’m sure that by the time you’ve gone over their mutually reinforcing prescriptions for articles, your befuddlement over the subtleties of their usage would have become a thing of the past—definitely not in a hundred years but in just matter of a few minutes.