Articles in English

I spend a lot of time studying English every day with a wishful thinking that I can become a writer some day. I read a lot, extensively and intensively. I write a lot, extensively and intensively. I speak a lot, extensively and intensively. But there is still a long way for me to publish a book, if there is any.

To be honest,as a non-native speaker of English, I feel as much frustrated using articles in English as any high school kid, when it comes to the English grammar. My native English editor friends often compliment my articles written in English, but not my usage of articles in English.

The articles in the English language are "the" and "a/an". "The" specifies the definite articles. "A/an" specifies indefinite articles according to adjacent sounds. An article combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun.

Every noun must be accompanied by an article, if any, corresponding to its definiteness, and the lack of an article (considered a zero article) itself specifies a certain definiteness. This obligatory nature of articles makes them among the most common words in English. And the most frequent word is "the" in English.

I had a tendency to abuse "the" before the noun. Last Monday evening, I gave a prepared speech "the hair is everything" at Prestige Toastmasters Club. Toastmasters Lester Lin was my individual evaluator. He told me that "the hair" conjured up a single, specific hair. I was recommended to change my speech title to "Hair is Everything". If we could think it twice, in stead of saying, "The money is everything", we would say, "Money is Everything."

Yesterday evening, Toastmaster Virginia Lee raised a question about an English quiz at her niece's school, she was curious if "The chinese are a hard-working people" a correct sentence grammatically. I thought of the English lesson I learned at once at Prestige club.

Among golden ladies, there was a heated discussion about the English grammar. Which sentence is correct, "Chinese are hard-working people" or "The chinese are a hard-working people", or both, I hope I can grasp the nuance of the language affect from a writer's point of view little by little. It is never too late to learn!