Today's tip: 如何使用the

Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on using the English article “the” correctly.

The article “the” is most frequently used to refer to a previously mentioned object. The use of “the” indicates that your listener should know which object you are referring to. One reason the listener might know which object you are referring to is that you were just talking about it earlier. However, sometimes the article “the” is used even when the object hasn’t been mentioned previously. A speaker can use the article “the”to indicate that the object is very familiar to the listener. For example, a man and his wife might have a conversation about their car.

“I’m going to pick up the car at the garage on the way to the health club. Make sure to check the radio to see if the mechanic fix the power button.” Although the things car, garage, health club, radio, mechanic and power button had not been mentioned earlier, both the husband and wife know that the are talking about their car, the garage and health club they always go to, the radio in their car, the mechanic at the garage they always go to, the power button of the radio in their car.

Another reason why the article “the” is used is that the object is so frequently referred to that every body knows which one is being referred to. Although there are many suns with many moons orbiting them, when we say the sun and the moon, we mean those which we see every day and night. Similarly, we use the article “the” for objects present at the time of speaking. For example, the floor is the floor we are standing on. Other words used like this include the air, the earth, the world, the sky, the rain, the whether, the wind and the Bible.So remember that when an item is very familiar to the listener or very frequently referred to, or the only one present at the time, we use the article “the”.This has been today’s daily tip. Tune in tomorrow for another tip on learning English.