Some Peculiarities of the Article Usage

	No article	The	a	Set expressions
Months, days	May is a spring month.	We’ll always remember the May of 1945.	A cold May is a usual thing in St.Petersburg.
Seasons	I like winter. It was early spring.	It happened in the spring of 1930.	It was a beautiful spring.
Day, night, morning, evening, afternoon	Day is meant for work, night for sleep.	The night was warm and beautiful.	I spent a sleepless night.	By day/ by night; At night/ at dawn/ daybreak/ sunrise/ sunset/ noon/ night; From morning till night; In the morning/ evening/afternoon;
Languages	She knows English well.	The English of America differs from the English of Great Britain.		What is the English for …?
Meals (lunch/dinner/ tea)	Did you have dinner?	The dinner we had today was very tasty.	After a heavy breakfast we started for …	To have breakfast/dinner/ supper

	No article	According to the rule
School/ college/ university	To be at school/college/university To go to school/college/university To leave school/college	To go to the school To leave the school (the building is meant )
Church	In church/ at church	The church was built in … There is a church in the city.
Prison/ jail	To be in prison To be sent to prison To be put in prison	Ken went to the prison to visit his brother.
Bed	To go to bed/ to be in bed/ to stay in bed/	Her portrait was on the wall beside the bed. There is a bed…
Work	To go to work/ to be at work/ to start work	I like the work I’m doing.
Home	To go home/ to come home/ to be at home/ to stay at home/ to feel at home	An orphans home/ a nursing home/ a maternity home
Town	To town/ in town	I was to go to the town I was born in.
Hospital	To go to hospital/ to be in hospital	When Ann was ill we went to the hospital to visit her.

Read a picture story. Explain the usage of the articles.

1. It happened in a small town in Siberia. .

2. I watched acar as it came up our road. The car stopped outside our house and a man got out. The man …

3. He was a doctor.

4. A child can understand it.

5. He had hardly spoken a wordas we left the house.

6. He said: ‘I’ll be back in a minute. My car makes 120 km an hour. I need some books. I go to the library twice a week.

7. What a clever man!

8. My friend, a history teacher, knows a lot but he doesn’t visit the library so often.

9. He is such aclever man.

10. He knows everything about measles, mumps, shingles, blood pressure, flu, gout, hepatitis.

1. How did you like the play?

2. Shakespeare is the author that wrote the play.

Tell me about the actors that took part in it, please!

3. The play looked sad. The bride was too old and the bridegroom was too young.

4. It was out-of-door theatre. The sun was getting warmer while we were watching the play.

5. The tragedy and the comedy appeared in Greece, you know.

6. But that was the best play I have ever watched in this country.

It was the very play I dreamed about since my childhood.

We sat in the first row.

7. Both the rich and the poor admired this play.

8. Even the president of Germany was there.

9. He lives in the country at the seaside near the mountains, in the city with the cinema, the theater, the radio, the police, the fire brigade, the army, the post office, the bank, the doctor and the dentist whom he visits at the weekend.

10. He perfectly plays the trumpet.

11. And he loves to visit the restaurants of the Russians, the Japanese, the Italian, the Danes, etc. but he is an American.