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 Present Simple

[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.

[Muhammad Aslam]

hi,
can any one explane it for me,that..................
why we use definite for ,the, and why we use indefinite for a/an.

thank u................................

[Potentperson]

I like the detailed info you give and the story is useful, however, I saw a couple of mistakes in the text:

"One of the main differences between the two is that Charlie has no imagination well perhaps a little whereas Maria has the most vivid imagination you could think of."

I'd say this sentence needs some commas, before (and perhaps after) "well" and before "whereas". Right now there's no natural pause.

The audio file just had too many small mistakes to overlook. In the following sentence the dash to suggest the lack of an article is read as a pause: "but sometimes it can lead to — problems"

I also completely agree with the various responses on the unrealistic pronunciation of "ey" and "thee". It's confusing. It should always be "the book", "thee apple" and I would want my students to hear "It was just a bat". It's supposed be a very flippant passing comment, Charlie is making out that it was nothing.

Later on in the recording she stutters a couple of times and there is a computer beep.

It's also a very fast pace for a lot of learners to take in so much detailed information about all the many and varied uses of articles. I would suggest leaving thinking space. I myself needed a little more time to think on one of the examples, but the audio raced on ahead. I couldn't quickly press stop because I was half way down the page and the audio is at the top. I'm an English teacher and native English secretary from London. I needed a little more time.

Hey, it's a tough job to get such a long recording perfect, however, reading it slower will make it easier for the speaker as well as making it easier for the listener to follow and understand. That way it would also be a more accessible tool for people of different learning levels.

I'm good at criticism - of course it's wonderful work that you're doing and none of what I've said cancels out the value of the document/audio. Please keep it up!

[Everlasting_Love]

Hello. Your opinion about pronunciation of a is interesting! I didn't know there were such a tendency on pronunciation. To people like us, who study English as a 2nd language, we naturally can't find out the difference until someone tells us. We, Japanese have used many wrong usage of Japanese language while we knew the way of using is grammatically wrong.

[Everlasting_Love]

And, I have a quesion!

Why is the article "the" put before jacket on the 1 sentence that referes to "jacket", and "a" put before "jacket" on the 2nd sentence?

1 sentence;
she replied that there was a strange thing on "the" jacket that was hanging in the bedroom.
2nd sentence;
He could see "a" jacket hanging in the bedroom and went up to it to have a closer look at the"thing".

Am I right to think it's because on the 1 sentence "jacket" she was referring was definite to two of them, so "the" were used here before "jacket",
and on the 2nd sentence, there were other jackets in the bed room besides "jacket" mentioned on the 1st sentence, so "a" was put here?

But, "jacket" on the 1st sentence wasn't definite to reader even if so to the two. I am confused.
If because "jacket" on the 1st sentence is made definite by the additon of a phrase, "the" must come before "jacket" ,as the explanation of article "the",that is, "Before a noun made definite by the addition of a phrase or clause.The woman dressed in black.", then "jacket"on the 2nd sentence should be put "the" before it.

To English learner, the difference between "a"and "the" is the most difficult grammar of all the grammars in Englsih.
Someone says "to master the difference, it takes 50 years."

[Alan]

Hi,

To save waiting 50 years I offer for consideration some notes I've written for the site on the articles:

http://www.english-test.net/lessons/57/index.html + (2) (3) and (4)

Alan
_________________
English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story Progressive Forms

[Everlasting_Love]

Thank you for reply, but it is too hard to understand, and what makes it difficult is that they are explained in English
But your comment"to save waiting 50 years" got my laughter. You have a wit.

[Maia K]

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Hello dear Torsten,
The story is interesting as the other ones as well written by Allan. One thing is: Could the story reader pronounce the sentences little bit slower? We are non-natives and try to catch every single sound in the speech.. Thank you and hope my comment will reach you!

[Mitra584]

Dear Alan,
Would you please explain me about abstract nouns in English language? I know its definition in my mother language but in English I cannot understand it.
Like this "Fear is natural."
With regard
Mitra
_________________
Peace&Love

[Mitra584]

Dear Torsten,
I could not download this audio. what do I do?
_________________
Peace&Love

[Roman Brytva]

Hello Mitra584,

try to click on the link with the right mouse button and then choose something like "Save file". I hope that will help you :-)

[Mitra584]

Dear Roman,
I did it but I could just open link and again could not download Audio. Thanks a lot for your practical and kind guidance.
Sincerely yours
Mitra
_________________
Peace&Love