English Grammar - How to use the "Zero"/"No" Article

hello everyone welcome to the final part of our three-part series on articles my name is Amber and I'm delighted today to be teaching you about the zero article witches when not to use an article here are some example sentences George likes animals life is wonderful Sylvia's birthday is in June okay in today's lesson you're going to learn three things when not to use an article how to use no article in a sentence and to compare a and an the and no article so before we begin I want to confirm your understanding of these terms singular noun plural noun and uncountable noun and here are some examples so a snowflake snowflakes and snow snowflake is the little picture you can see on the right of the screen so with singular and plural nouns we can count them so one snowflake two snowflakes on the other hand with uncountable nouns we can't count them so snow is an example of an uncountable noun and snow is lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of snowflakes falling from the sky so too many to count alright so here are the three types of articles in English we have a and an the indefinite article the which is the definite article and the zero article okay so if you haven't watched part one and two I recommend that you do so now today's lesson is focusing on zero article so when should we use no article well there are two uses we use no article when you introduce a plural uncountable noun for the first time for example I bought furniture yesterday so that's new information it's the first time I'm telling you about my furniture purchase and then if I say the furniture is white the furniture is referring to my first sentence the second use is for general statements here are some examples dogs eat more than cats furniture is expensive happiness is important so we can see here that dogs and cats dogs is a plural noun Furniture is an uncountable noun and happiness is an abstract noun so for all three of these sentences I'm talking in a general way now there are some other uses for no articles we use no article with mountains so I climbed Mount Fuji we also don't use an article when we're talking about compass so for example it's in southern Spain okay and we also use no article with most proper nouns alright so I visited Tokyo in Japan Tokyo is a city Japan is a country I was born in August so again months are proper nouns and Joe loves Sylvia however in our previous videos on the we learnt that some proper nouns do need an article in particular places of interest so for example the Eiffel Tower the pyramids now another point to mention is we use no article with it's in southern Spain however if I were to say it's in the south of Spain here we need ver so southern is an adjective southern Spain so we use no article but when the direction north east south or west is the noun we must use though it's in the south of Spain now there are some other ways that we avoid using an article we won't go into detail into these ways in this video but if you head to e to school comm you can learn about the other uses of the 0 article in this lesson ok so now let's take a look at the rule we use the 0 article with plural nouns and uncountable nouns however we must not use it with singular nouns so singular nouns you cannot use no article you must use a or duh for example I bought chair is wrong we would need to say I bought a chair or I bought the chair however it's absolutely correct to say I bought chairs so the plural form or the uncountable I bought furniture ok are you ready for our first act ooh if you're on e to school just do the activity below this video if you're on YouTube you'll just need your mind and your eyes and maybe your pen and some paper or head on over to e to school and sign up it's a really fun way to practice and learn okay this is the first activity you need to choose the incorrect sentence I saw snowflakes I saw snowflake I saw snow you've got 20 seconds okay here's the answer the incorrect sentence is B I saw snowflake now why is it incorrect well that's because snowflake is a singular noun okay we've got another one Silvia likes jewelry Silvia likes necklaces Silvia likes necklace just to show you the vocabulary jewelry refers to the objects or ornaments that we put on our bodies so it's a broad term Jewelry includes earrings or ring necklace bracelet necklace is this one that goes around your neck okay you have 20 seconds to do this activity your time starts now here's the answer the incorrect sentence is C so again that's because necklace is a singular noun okay moving on we're now going to look at how to use no article in a sentence so here are two sentences Silvia bought chairs Silvia bought green chairs now the rule is that articles go before the noun so the chair a chair the green chair a green chair with the zero article we delete the article so it's Silvia bought chairs subject Silvia bought the verb and then directly to the object chairs the next sentence is subject verb adjective object Silvia bought green chairs here are some more sentences and we can see that the article is deleted in these sentences so dogs have tails small dogs have small tails okay now we're going to move on to the final part of this lesson now if you haven't watched part 1 and part 2 of our series on articles I suggest that you watch them now in order to help you complete these activities okay so here are the three different types of articles in part one we looked at the indefinite article in part two the definite and in today's lesson the zero article let's look at some sentences so summer likes movies I've used no article here because this is a general statement summer saw a movie I've used up here because this is new information it's the first time I'm telling you that summer saw a movie summer likes the movie now here I'm using the because it's the second time I'm telling you about this particular movie so here I showed you that she saw a movie and now I'm talking about the same movie to show that she liked it ok moving on now I'm going to show you the general rule and this is a fantastic rule because this will help you solve the problem or the question of what article do I need to use because often this can be quite a confusing difficult question well don't worry this rule will make it super easy for you the first question we need to ask is does your audience so the reader or your listener the person you're talking to do they have an awareness of the noun so in part 2 we looked at awareness awareness is when a noun is specific obvious unique or repeated if the answer is no then we need to ask this question okay what's the noun type if the noun type is singular or plural or uncountable for singular we need to use a or an and for both plural and uncountable we use no article now moving back we need to ask the same question does your audience have an awareness of the now if the answer is yes then again we ask what is the noun type and this one's easy if there is an awareness for both singular and plural and also uncountable we always use the alright now it's time for activity number two so if you're only to school just do this activity on our website below the video you need to complete the sentence with either zu a an or no article at all so to give you a little hint there are 3 0 articles to indefinite articles and 3 definite articles you've got one minute to complete this activity okay how did you go let's take a look at the answers so for our first sentence we need to say is the Nile River in Egypt we need to use the four rivers and Egypt is a proper noun it's a country so we use no article next over seven million people a year visit the Eiffel Tower in Paris okay so let's start from the beginning we need to use a year so this is a time reference the Eiffel Tower is a place of interest and so that's why we're using the and Paris again this is a proper noun so no article it's a city okay our next sentence I've got a bad headache the headache started this morning okay so we need to use up firstly because it's the first time we're mentioning this information this is new information the second time we say headache we need to use the so this is a repeated noun to show that I'm talking about that headache and our last sentence nowadays technology is advancing quickly so no article here and that's because this is a general statement about the world okay so in today's class you learned when not to use an article how to use no article in a sentence and to compare a and an over and no article so a little review we use no article first of all to introduce plural uncountable nouns for the first time the second use is with general statements and it also has some other uses so with proper nouns and mountains and you can learn about these in detail on e to school the rule is that zero articles can only be used with plural and uncountable nouns alright everyone if you're on YouTube don't forget to subscribe hit like or comment below if you have any questions about the different types of articles how to use them when to use them and please share this video well it's been my pleasure to teach you about this today and I hope this information has been useful and helpful for you thank you for watching along and we'll see you next time on e to school bye [Music]

Channel: E2 English

Views: 32,869

Keywords: ESL, esl, E2, e2, English, english grammar, articles, adverbs, grammar, A2 Key, B1 Preliminary, B2 First, KET, PET, FCE, Cambridge Exam, E2School, Test Ready, E2Language, Speaking, Zero Article, english lesson, E2 ielts, ielts E2, PTE, OET, ielts, A2 KET, B1 PET, learn english, E2 School, toefl, zero, no, no article, zero article, english class, tutorial, lesson plan, english course, definite article, adjective, kinds of adverbs, definition of adverb, engvid, phrasal verbs, tips, beginner, words

Id: zMKR0CPOwDM

Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 17 2019