Articles of (Grammar) Faith

The surest way to identify a non-native speaker is by looking at their articles – a, an,  and the.  Russian does not have any articles, which mean Russian speakers often add them almost randomly.  Hebrew speakers only have the definitive one – the.   French use is similar, but with differences, including the requirement to place one before every noun in a list.  Compare the English I will take the fish, rice, and salad as compared to the French Je prendrai le poisson, le riz et la salade.

For a change, there are actually clear rules in English.

a.      All singular nouns must have an article, either the indefinite a (or an) or the definite the.

b.      Plural nouns if definite must be preceded by the; otherwise there is no article.

Examples: A friend of mine has the only copy of the book.  The books are important resources.

Exception:  Abstract nouns (uncountable to some of you) do not take articles:  You need patience and skill [in general] to succeed.  Since as abstract nouns, they can’t be plural, there is nothing to worry there.

Clarification: a and an

Contrary to what many have you been taught in school, the word an does NOT go before a vowel.  It goes before a VOWEL SOUND!

Appearances can be deceiving.  Some vowels (AEIOU) can SOUND like a consonant while some consonants can sound like a vowel.

An egg but A European egg:  The word European sound like [yu], meaning a consonant sound.

An ugly building at a university:  [u]gly as compared to [yu]niversity.

You’ll be a happy person in an hour:  The word happy has a voiced h, while hour doesn’t.

Police look for an MO:  You say [em] and therefore write an.

If you are unsure whether to write a or an, say the word.

If you are unsure whether to use an article, remember that unless the noun is plural and indefinite, there must be an article.

As they say in Hebrew, הבנת את זה. ברוך?  or, more seriously, if you explain it to me slowly, I’ll understand it quickly.

Past Progressive – Use it wisely

Students of English often fall in love with specific tenses.  English teachers are somewhat guilty in that they overemphasize certain forms of the verb because they are either easy to teach or demonstrate.  The classic example is the present progressive, am/are/is ___ing, but the past progressive is also generally over and misused by Israelis.

To clarify the matter, the past progressive, was/were ____ing, has three specific meanings:

a.      The most common – an unfinished action that must be completed by a verb in the past tense:  I was walking home when I saw an elephant.  I was on my way home, but did not reach it.  You cannot have just the past progressive.  It is like throwing one shoe and leaving the listener/reader waiting for the other shoe.

b.      Two or more simultaneous actions, all in the past progressive:  you were sleeping while I was cleaning the house.

c.       Rare: asking about a specific action at a specific time in the past, as the police or your parents would do:  What were you doing at four o’clock in the morning in the park? (Parents really don’t want to know!)

In terms of other languages, the French imparfait is not really the equivalent.  It emphasizes repeated actions, such as Je dormais toute la journée quand j’avais 15 ans (I used to sleep all day when I was 15 years old).  The closest in terms of the first meaning is j’étais en train de rentrer chez moi quand je suis tombé.  Russian has the imperfect aspect in the past tense (несовершенный вид).  One of the uses is for unfinished actions as in я открывал окно [ya otkrival okno],  I was opening the window, which implies that the window has not been opened.

As a rule, do NOT use the past progressive unless you want to say that the action was not completed.  The other two uses are in fact very rare.