英语听力精选进阶版 7953

Victoria from Qingdao sent in this week's question about the use of the.

Words like the, a or an are called articles. She says she has some knowledge of them but still finds them difficult to use.

Alex Gooch is a teacher of English as a foreign language and he said almost all students experience problems with articles, so don't worry if you find them difficult too.

The best way to demonstrate¹ how to use the is by comparing it with the use of a or an.

A or an is used for countable² nouns³ (nouns with plurals⁴ like hat/hats, bottle/bottles - uncountable nouns are things that can't be counted like air, rice etc), when you're introducing them for the first time in a conversation.

- I watched a film yesterday.

We use a film here because this is the first time we have heard about the film - the listener⁵ doesn't know which film is being talked about.

However we use the when we're discussing something that we expect the listener already knows about.

- I watched a film yesterday, but it wasn't as good as the film we watched last week.

We say the film we watched last week because both the speaker and the person he is talking know about the film - because they watched it last week.

- The book you gave me last weekend was so exciting.

- I need to find a book about Beijing.

If we look at the examples above, we can see why one uses the book and one uses a book.

When we say the book you gave me last weekend we know which specific⁶ book it is so we use the. However if we need to find a book about Beijing it could be any book. We don't know which book.

The best advice Alex could give about using articles in English is to practise. The more you hear and speak English, the more you will get a feeling for which article to use. Good luck!

Glossary 词汇

articles 冠词

to demonstrate 解释，示范

countable nouns 可数名词

uncountable nouns 不可数名词

specific 明确的

get a feeling for 获得语感

1 demonstrate   

vt.论证，证明；示范；显示；vi.示威游行

参考例句：

• Let me demonstrate to you how this machine works.我给你演示一下这台机器的运转情况。
• How can I demonstrate to you that my story is true?我怎样才能向你证明我的话是真实的呢？

2 countable   

adj.可数的，可以计算的

参考例句：

• The word "person" is a countable noun.person这个词是个可数名词。
• Countable nouns have singular and plural forms.可数名词有单数和复数之分。

3 nouns   

n.名词；名词( noun的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns. 法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Nouns join to form compounds. 名词和名词结合构成复合词。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 plurals   

n.复数，复数形式( plural的名词复数 )

参考例句：

5 listener   

n.听众；收听者

参考例句：

• I'm a regular listener to her show.我经常收听她的节目。
• She became an attentive listener.她变成了一个专心致志的聆听者。

6 specific   

adj.明确的；具体的；特定的

参考例句：

• The money is to be used for specific purposes.这笔钱有专门用途。
• We haven't fixed a specific date for our meeting.我们会议的具体日期还没有定下来。