Grade 10 Grammar Lesson 26 Articles: a and an

Where do we use the article ‘a’?
Where do we use the article ‘an’?
What articles are used before abbreviations?
Can we replace ‘a/an’ with ‘one’?
Where do we use ‘one’?

• We use the indefinite article ‘a/an’ before singular countable nouns to mean ‘one’. We use a before words that begin in a consonant sound.
•  We use an before words that begin in a vowel sound.
•  Abbreviations said as individual letters that begin with A, E, R, H, I, L, M, N, O R, S or X have an initial vowel sound, so they take an.
• Abbreviations said as words may not have an initial vowel sound.
•  We may sometimes use one instead of a/an but this happens if we want to emphasise singularity. (=We are talking of one, not two, not three)
•  We also use one (not, a/an) in the pattern one..other or one…another.
•  We also use expressions such as one day, one morning, one summer etc to mean a particular but unspecified day, morning, summer etc.
•  We don’t use one when we mean anyone of a particular thing.
•  We also use a/an in number and quantity expressions such as:
•  We also use a/an (not, one) in the pattern a/an.of followed by a possessive.