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The indefinite article - Easy Learning Grammar

The indefinite article is a or an. The form an is used before a word that starts with a vowel sound.
a girla cat
an eight-year-old girlan engineer
The indefinite article is used with singular countable nouns:
  • to refer to a person or a thing that you are mentioning for the first time in a conversation or a piece of writing.
  • A man was seen driving away in a black car.
  • to refer to a person or a thing which you do not want to be specific about.
  • I stopped off at a shop to buy a newspaper.
  • You go past a petrol station on the left, and then you’ll see our house on the right.
  • to refer to a person or a thing which you cannot be more specific about because there is not enough information.
  • A man called to see you this afternoon.
  • There was a telephone call for you a minute ago.
  • in definitions.
  • An octopus is a sea creature with eight tentacles.
  • when you refer to a person’s profession.
  • Her father is a dentist and her mother is a teacher.
  • to express a quantity, unless you wish to emphasize the number, when one must be used. The equivalent for plural nouns is some or no determiner at all. See Determiners.
  • I want a needle and a thimble.
  • Would you like a glass of wine?
  • There is only one glass of wine left in the bottle.
  • Guy has bought a skateboard.
  • We’ve got three pairs of rollerblades and one skateboard.
It is the sound, not the spelling, that decides where an is used. For example, although unique begins with a vowel, the sound at the beginning resembles a y- sound.
an idiotan awful mistake
a unicorna unique experience
There are a few words that begin with a silent h-, in front of which an should be used. They are: heir, heiress, honest, honour, hour.
  • Very formal or old-fashioned speakers also use the an form with some words beginning with an h- that is not silent, especially historical and hotel.
I waited an hour. 
They joined a historical society. 
They joined an historical society.    (old-fashioned English)
They were staying at a hotel. 
They were staying at an hotel.(old-fashioned English)
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Table of contents
  • Parts of speech
  • Parts of the sentence
  • Direct and indirect objects
  • Verbs
  • Tense
  • The verb phrase
    • Types of main verb
    • The forms of main verbs
    • Irregular verbs
    • Auxiliary verbs
    • Be
    • Have
    • Do
    • Modal verbs
    • Can and could
    • May and might
    • Must
    • Shall and will
    • Should
    • Would
    • Ought to
    • Dare and need
    • Used to
    • Phrasal verbs
    • Tense
    • Aspect
    • Compound tenses
    • The present simple tense
    • The past simple tense
    • The present continuous tense
    • The past continuous tense
    • The present perfect tense
    • The past perfect tense
    • The present perfect continuous tense
    • The past perfect continuous tense
    • Future reference
    • Active and passive
    • Finite and non-finite verbs
    • The non-finite parts of the verb
    • The to infinitive
    • The to infinitive and the -ing form
  • The noun phrase
    • The noun phrase
    • Types of noun
    • Gender of nouns
    • Showing possession through nouns
    • Compound nouns
    • Number in nouns
    • Verbal nouns
  • Determiners and adjectives
    • Determiners
    • The indefinite article
    • The definite article
    • Nouns used without a determiner
    • Demonstratives
    • Possessives
    • Quantifiers
    • Numbers
    • Distributives
    • Exclamatives
    • Noun phrases with several determiners
    • Adjectives
    • Comparison
  • Adverbials
    • Adverbs and adverbials
    • Form of adverbs
  • Pronouns
    • Pronouns
    • Personal pronouns
    • Reflexive pronouns
    • Possessive pronouns
    • The demonstrative pronouns
    • Relative pronouns
    • Interrogative pronouns
    • Indefinite pronouns
  • Prepositions
  • Word order; declarative, interrogative and imperative statements
    • Word order in sentences
    • Declarative, interrogative, and imperative statements
    • The declarative
    • Complements
    • Word order in negative statements
    • The interrogative
    • WH- words
    • Sentence tags
    • The imperative
    • The vocative
    • The subjunctive
    • Exclamations
    • Responses
  • Clauses
    • Sentences and clauses
    • Joining clauses
    • Subordination
    • Adverbial clauses
    • Relative clauses
    • Conditional clauses
    • Reporting speech
    • Reported speech
  • Punctuation
    • The apostrophe ( ’ )
    • The comma ( , )
    • Quotation marks (‘ ’) or (“ ”)
    • Capital letters
    • The full stop ( . )
    • The question mark ( ? )
    • The exclamation mark ( ! )
    • The colon ( : )
    • The semicolon ( ; )
    • Brackets ( )
    • Square brackets [ ]
    • The hyphen ( - )
    • The dash ( – )
    • The slash ( / )
    • Punctuation in numbers
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