Different Parts of Speech (Articles and Nouns)

There are different parts of speech in the English language: article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, conjunction, preposition and interjection.

Let us begin with the first two in the list, the article and the noun. An article is placed before a noun. The articles are a, an and the - a and an are called indefinite articles (general) and the is called the definite article (specific).

A noun is a person, place or thing, for example: man (person), library (place), lion (thing),  and car (thing).

Here is an example using the definite and indefinite articles with a noun:

Have you got the pen? (referring to a specific pen)

Have you got a pen? (not referring to a specific pen)

There are 2 ways to write the indefinite article, a and an. Usually a is used when the noun begins with a consonant, for example, a ball, and an is used when the noun begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u), for example, an apple, but there are exceptions. One exception is the word 'university', which starts with a vowel, but uses a (a university) and not an, because the word 'university' has a consonant sound.