Articles-the

[David30]

Hi Kitos,

Could you please tell me the difference of meaning in the each pair.

1) Americans elect their president once in 4 years.
2) The Americans elect their president once in 4 years.

3) Due to fog, all planes were cancelled.
4) Due to fog, all the planes were cancelled.

5) All students should come to the function.
6) All the students should come to the function.

Thanks Kitos

[Alan]

Hi David,

In all your sentences the use of 'the' indicates that we are making a particular reference to 'Americans', 'planes' and 'students'.

By leaving the article 'the' out in those sentences we simply refer to these nouns in general,

I have written some notes on the use of articles that you might like to see:

http://www.english-test.net/lessons/16/index.html

http://www.english-test.net/lessons/57/index.html http://www.english-test.net/lessons/58/index.html

http://www.english-test.net/lessons/59/index.html http://www.english-test.net/lessons/60/index.html

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

[David30]

Thank you very much Alan