Collins Cobuild

Unit 26
‘A’ and ‘an’
Main points
You only use ‘a’ or ‘an’ with singular count nouns.
You use ‘a’ or ‘an’ to talk about a person or thing for the first time.
1
 You  only  use  ‘a’  or  ‘an’  with  singular  count  nouns.  ‘A’  and  ‘an’  are
called the indefinite article.
I got a postcard from Susan.
He was eating an apple.
Remember  that  you  use  ‘a’  in  front  of  a  word  that  begins  with  a
consonant  sound  even  if  the  first  letter  is  a  vowel,  for  example  ‘a
piece,  a  university,  a  European  language’.  You  use  ‘an’  in  front  of  a
word  that  begins  with  a  vowel  sound  even  if  the  first  letter  is  a
consonant, for example ‘an exercise, an idea, an honest man’.
2
You use ‘a’ or ‘an’ when you are talking about a person or thing for the
first time.
She picked up a book.
After weeks of looking, we eventually bought a house.
A colleague and I got some money to do research on rats.
Note that the second time you refer to the same person or thing, you

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use ‘the’.
She picked up a book … … The book was lying on the table.
After weeks of looking, we bought a house … … The house was in a
village.
3
After the verb ‘be’ or another link verb, you can use ‘a’ or ‘an’ with an
adjective  and  a  noun  to  give  more  information  about  someone  or
something.
His brother was a sensitive child.
He seemed a worried man.
It was a really beautiful house.
You can also use ‘a’ or ‘an’ with a noun followed by a qualifier, such as
a  prepositional  phrase  or  a  relative  clause,  when  you  want  to  give
more information about someone or something.
The information was contained in an article on biology.
I chose a picture that reminded me of my own country.
4
You use ‘a’ or ‘an’ after the verb ‘be’ or another link verb when you are
saying what someone is or what job they have.
He became a school teacher.
She is a model and an artist.
5
You use ‘a’ or ‘an’ to mean ‘one’ with some numbers. You can use ‘a’ or
‘an’  with  nouns  that  refer  to  whole  numbers,  fractions,  money,
weights, or measures.
a hundred
a quarter a pound a kilo
a thousand a half
a dollar a litre
6
You do not use ‘a’ or ‘an’ with uncount nouns or plural count nouns.
You do not need to use a determiner at all with plural count nouns,
but  you  can  use  the  determiners  ‘any’,  ‘a  few’,  ‘many’,  ‘several’,  or

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‘some’.
I love dogs.
Do you have any dogs?
Many adults don’t listen to children.
I have some children like that in my class.
Note that if you do not use a determiner with a plural count noun, you
are often making a general statement about people or things of that
type.  For  example,  if  you  say  ‘I  love  dogs’,  you  mean  all  dogs.
However, if you say ‘There are eggs in the kitchen’, you mean there
are  some  eggs.  If  you  do  use  a  determiner,  you  mean  a  number  of
people  or  things  but  not  all  of  them,  without  saying  exactly  how
many.
I have some friends coming for dinner.
He has bought some plants for the house.
I have some important things to tell them.

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