


Articles
Articles are a type of determiner.
Determiners are words that are placed in front of nouns, that identify what a noun is referring to.
Pronouns and demonstratives can be found here:
Quantifiers, Numbers, Gradable Adverbs (pre-determiners), and distributives can be found here:
Articles
In English most nouns need to have an article, but not in every case.
There are indefinite articles (a/an) and definite articles (the).
Here is a rough guide for the use of each one.

What one do I use?
Although English has rules, sometimes based on context it sounds odd to use or miss an article when grammatically the rules have been followed.
Musical instruments for example are like this because it can follow the rules.
My brother loves guitars
I want to buy a guitar
Could you give me the red guitar?
However, if you wanted to learn said musical instrument, it becomes a different context.
I want to learn the guitar
He's really good at the guitar.
Sandy Millin made a great flowchart which you can see here. I also put the ideas into charts.





