Feedback on audio recording (4 Articles, Charlie the Brave)

[Sonia*]

A very sweet good evening to all of you,

thank you very much for the recording and everything. I did benefit a lot. A special thank-you-note for brandee.

I have some questions. Hope you can help me with them:

why do we use THE in these sentences??

1- One of the main differences between the two is that.....

2- the warm summer air.....

and about this rule:

*Before a noun made definite by the addition of a phrase or clause.
"The woman dressed in black."

umm can you give my example on how to use this rule?

also, can i say ( i saw a woman dressed in black)?

my last question.

what is the right thing to say

the sky is the limit

OR

sky is the limit?

many thanks in advance. Your site is amazing.

sonia*

[Alan]

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Hi Sonia,

Some good questions there.

We use 'the' when we want to talk about one particular thing/person. We say the main differences because we are talking about particular differences that are main. We say the two because we are talking about these two that we are going to discuss. Again the warm summer air - this is particular air because it's summer and warm.

You can say a woman dressed in black or blue or green but we don't know which woman. As soon as we say the woman dressed in black, we are talking about that woman over there - do you see her? -it's the woman dressed in black.

Finally we say the sky is the limit because there is only one sky and that's why we say the sky.

Is that any better?

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Adverbs

[Sonia*]

Thanks a million Alan sir.It is clear to me now.

sonia*

[Alwaysmile]

Hello Mr Alan, below, my doubt...

....fear like the rest of us but when this creatures opened its wings....

The text above is a small portion of "Charlie the brave. Is the creature, (the bat), singular or plurar ? I'm not sure if it was an error of digitation or not.