{"id":74057,"date":"2020-04-16T11:58:54","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T11:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=74057"},"modified":"2024-07-24T16:59:47","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T16:59:47","slug":"cases-where-a-an-cannot-be-used","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/cases-where-a-an-cannot-be-used\/","title":{"rendered":"Cases Where A\/An Cannot Be Used"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The indefinite article<strong> a\/an <\/strong>cannot be used with plural or uncountable nouns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Books give knowledge. (NOT A books give knowledge.)<\/li><li>Rice is rich in carbohydrates. (NOT The rice is&#8230;)<\/li><li>I adore dogs and cats. <\/li><li>She doesn&#8217;t eat cheese.<\/li><li>Do you eat meat?<\/li><li>Knowledge is power.<\/li><li>Ideas rule the world.<\/li><li>Ignorance isn&#8217;t blissful. <\/li><li>Water is essential for life.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The indefinite article<strong> a\/an <\/strong>is not used with singular proper nouns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Rahul is a student. (NOT A Rahul is a student.)<\/li><li>Iran is a country in Asia. (NOT An Iran is a country in an Asia.)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We do not use <strong>a\/an <\/strong>with possessive and demonstratives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>She is an old friend of mine. (NOT She is a my old friend.)<\/li><li>I want to adopt this cat. (NOT I want to adopt a this cat.)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Note that we use the definite article <strong>the<\/strong> with plural and uncountable nouns when we are talking about particular people or things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>I talked to <strong>the girls<\/strong> sitting in the front row. (We are talking about particular girls here; hence, we use the with it.)<\/li><li>The shy boy does not talk to <strong>girls.<\/strong> (We are talking about girls in general here; hence, we do not use the with it.)<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The indefinite article a\/an cannot be used with plural or uncountable nouns. Books give knowledge. (NOT A books give knowledge.) Rice is rich in carbohydrates. (NOT The rice is&#8230;) I adore dogs and cats.&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[2682,2681,2683],"class_list":["post-74057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-definite-articles","tag-omission-of-definite-articles","tag-when-a-an-cannot-be-used"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74057"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77883,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74057\/revisions\/77883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}