60 Omission - Articles

Articles belong to the group of words called Determiners.

In some specific cases Articles can be omitted without affecting the structure or meaning of the sentence.

We use Articles usually before nouns and adjectives. The most common cases in which Articles can be omitted are:

Before: Uncountable nouns, plural countable nouns names/proper nouns, meals, languages, pairs of nouns, possessives, prepositional phrases.

After: “kind of”.

Before:

1. Uncountable nouns
   • Olive oil is good for your health.
   • Iron is a very essential material.
   • We often use flour in baking.
2. Plural countable nouns
   • Children are usually impatient.
   • People travel more and more.
   • Mobile phones are very useful.
3. Names/Proper nouns (of people, countries etc.)
   • Washington is the capital of America.
   • Jenny is very friendly.
   • Are you from Japan?
4. Meals
   • I usually have toast for breakfast.
   • They had fish and vegetables for lunch.
   • What would you like for dinner?
5. Languages
   • English is easy.
   • Spanish is a widely spoken language.
   • Russian is difficult.
6. Pairs of nouns
   • Short and fat people experience bullying when kids.
   • She invited them both, husband and wife.
   • Mum and dad are coming to visit me for Christmas.
7. With possessives
   • His uncle teaches at university.
   • Her sister is a lawyer.
   • His dog is 7 years old.
8. Some prepositional phrases
   • He went to bed early.
   • He left his laptop at home.
   • He went to school.

After:

1. After “kind of”
   • What kind of person is he?
   • What kind of exercise is this?
   • What kind of vegetable is this?

Articles are usually misused. But in the cases that are mentioned in FORM section we omit Articles, in this way we can convey the meaning in a grammatically correct way.

There are cases where we can omit the article without affecting the structure or meaning of the sentence. Before uncountable nouns, plural countable nouns names/proper nouns, meals, languages, pairs of nouns, possessives, prepositional phrases and after “kind of” articles can be omitted.

For example:
— “Gold is valuable.” = ” Gold” is uncountable, therefore we can omit the article.
— “What kind of dog is this?” = After “kind of” we can omit the article.

Let’s revise this content within the [Form] section. Take a look at the [Example] section that shows its use within a context.