To: parkhotelres@parkhotel.com
From: Jsmith@xyzlaw.com

Subject: Hotel reservation

Dear Sirs:
I need the reservation for the large conference room for Sunday, November28. Please let me know if an room is available.

Thank you,

J. Smith
XYZ Law Firm
Dallas, TX

The English articles are among the trickiest words for non-native English speakers to master. They appear in just about every English sentence and play an important role in maintaining successful communication. In business communication, where writing to an international public is often necessary, using articles correctly is especially important. How many times do you find yourself not sure whether you are using the English articles correctly in your business correspondences? If you continually make errors in article usage, such as in the above example, you may create a negative effect on those who are reading your e-mails, letters or memos. Your readers may think that you have an imperfect control of the language and lower their opinions of your professionalism.

• To better understand the meaning of the English articles and when to use them, you need to understand the concepts of definiteness and specificity

1. What does it mean to say that something is definite or indefinite?

Something is definite when it is known, familiar, unique, or identified to the speaker and the hearer. Something is indefinite when it is novel, unfamiliar, or assumed to be identified by the hearer.

If the noun is definite, use the; if not,

use a, an, some, or no article.

In the above e-mail, J. Smith inquires about the availability of a conference room. She erroneously uses the definite article the instead of the indefinite a. The potential ‘reservation’ is still novel and unfamiliar as is the ‘conference room’. Therefore, the indefinite article should have preceded both nouns.

2. What makes a noun or noun phrase specific or nonspecific?

A specific noun phrase is one in which the identity of individual member(s) is clear.

A nonspecific noun phrase is one where the identity of a member of the set is not clear.

a. Use the when you know or assume that your listener is familiar with and thinking about the same specific thing or person you are talking about. When you say you want the book, you’re implying one particular book, even if you haven’t named it. The introduces both singular and plural nouns or noun phrases.

b. A and an are more general in meaning, and they work only with singular nouns. If you want a book, you’re willing to read any book. A comes before words that begin with consonants, and an comes before words beginning with vowels.

• The English articles function as adjectives to indicate ‘which one’. In other words, they point out or introduce a noun. In order to know which articles, if any, to use, you need to understand what type of noun they introduce.

§ There are two classes of nouns, proper nouns and common nouns. Proper nouns are words that name a specific person, place, thing or idea. For example, Tom and New York are proper nouns. A proper noun has two distinctive features: it will name a specific [usually a one-of-a-kind] item, and it will begin with a capital letter no matter where it occurs in a sentence. Common nouns, on the other hand, do not name a specific person, place, thing or idea. For instance, secretary and company are common nouns.

§ Common nouns are further classified into count and noncount. Words that can be counted are called count while words that cannot be counted and describe things as wholes are called noncount. For example, the noun, report, as in I need to finish my report today is a count noun because you can count reports. On the other hand, the noun, weather, as in the weather is mild today is noncount because you cannot count weather; rather, weather is described as a whole. Another thing to keep in mind concerning count and noncount nouns is that count nouns can take either the singular or plural form while noncount nouns take only the singular form.

• More facts about article usage

• Use the article a or an before a singular noun. Use an before a vowel sound. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u. Do not use the article a or an before a plural noun
• Introduce a singular noun with the indefinite articles a or an. When you refer to this noun again, use the definite article the. Use the before a singular noun if this noun is the only one or if the speaker and listener share an experience and are referring to the same one.
• Introduce a plural noun with some, any or no article. When you refer to this noun again, use the definite article the.
• Do not use the with a plural count noun (e.g., apples) or a noncount noun (e.g., gold) when you are making a generalization.

 Incorrect:  The apples are my favorite fruit.

Correct:     Apples are my favorite fruit.

Incorrect:  The gold is a metal.

Correct:     Gold is a metal.

• The following websites can help you further your study of English articles:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslart.html