Word Classes
Articles and determiners in use
Choose the, a, an or no article at all, and pick between few and a few, little and a little, either and neither.
You learned to choose a or an by listening to the first sound. This year asks a harder question: which article, if any, and how much of something a determiner is claiming. The words are tiny and the meaning they carry is not.
"The" points at one particular thing
Use the when both of you already know which one is meant: because it has been mentioned before, because there is only one of it (the sky, the equator), or because a superlative or an ordinal has narrowed it down to one — the fastest runner, the second attempt, the last page.
Sometimes the right article is no article
Meals, languages and ways of travelling take no article at all: before breakfast, he reads Spanish, they travel by train. Nor do general statements about a whole class of thing: Patience wins arguments. Sugar dissolves in water.
A few and few are opposites in feeling
A few means a small number, and it sounds positive: we still have a few tickets. Few means hardly any, and it sounds disappointed: few birds returned that spring. The same difference runs between a little and little, which are used for things you measure rather than count.
Either, neither, each, every
Either picks out one of two, whichever you like; neither rules both of them out. Each looks at members of a group one at a time and can be followed by of — each of the six candidates. Every looks at the whole group and never takes of.
Worked example
Choose the determiner: "Hurry — we have ____ (little / a little) time left."
Ask whether the sentence sounds hopeful or worried.
A little is the hopeful one — some, and enough. Little is the worried one — hardly any.
Try it together
Let us choose three articles in a row.
Each answer is one word — a, an or the. Watch what the sentence before it has already told you.
1.She is ____ best dancer in the group. Write the one word that fills the gap.
Have a go
Which sentence is correct?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.