We do not use an article:
• when we are talking about something in general:
Primary education is compulsory in this country.
Farmers in poor countries earn very little money.
• before the names of continents and most countries an
d towns:
in Europe, in Spain, in Berlin
Exceptions: in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in
the Netherlands, in the Hague
We use a/an:
• when we mention something for the fi rst time or to refer to
any one of a kind or group:
I’ve bought a new car. London is a big city.
• when talking about someone's job:
Lucy is a doctor
.
We use the:
• to refer to something that we have mentioned before:
He l
ived in a big city. The city was polluted.
• to refer to something specifi c or unique:
I like the colour of that shirt. Who is the King of Spain?
• to refer to a period in history:
the Renaissance
• with the superlative forms of adjectives:
the worst
• with ordinal numbers:
t
he third
1 Complete the sentences with a/an or the.
1 My mum’s secondary school teacher.
2 I was born on 16 January.
3 What do you want for lunch: chicken sandwich
or piece of pizza?
4 Is Sydney biggest city in Australia?
5 It’s fi rst time I’ve been to USA.
6 Leonardo da Vinci lived during Renaissance.
2
Complete the sentences with a/an, the or Ø (no article).
1 Wendy is famous artist. You can see her paintings
in best museums in world.
2 I think that private health care is going to become
more popular soon.
3 capital of Netherlands isn’t Hague.
It’s Amsterdam.
4 scientist has said recently that cities haven’t
changed much since nineteenth century.
5 Yesterday my brother asked me question about
natural d
isasters. I didn’t know answer.
6 Do you think secondary school students should
wear uniforms?
5.2
Articles: a/an or the,
no article
• Non-defi ning relative clauses give additional information
about the person, thing, place, etc. we are talking about.
The sentence still makes sense without this information.
Giant pandas, which are endangered species, live in the
mountains in central China. ➞ Giant pandas live in the
mountains in central China.
• We use commas to separate a non-defi ning relative clause
fr
om the rest of the sentence.
• We use who, which, where and whose (but not that) in
non-defi ning relative clauses:
Last year we visited our friends on the Aran islands, where
you can see lots of bird species.
• We can't leave out the relative pronouns in non-defi ning
r
elative clauses.
1 Complete the sentences with who, which, where or
whose.
1 That young man over there, name I can’t
r
emember at the moment, is a famous ecologist.
2 We went on an expedition to the Amazon, none
of us had ever been before.
3 The doctor, can’t have been older than thirty,
examined Lisa’s leg carefully.
4 Mrs Janet McGregor’s favourite holiday destination is
London, people don’t recognise her.
5 One of my friends, wife runs a big business, has
made a big donat
ion to an environmental charity.
6 The elephants, were drinking water from the river,
suddenly became very anxious.
2
Use the information in brackets to add a non-defi ning
relative clause to each sentence.
1 The company plans to build a skyscraper here.
(The company’s owner is Tania Hillman.)
2 This T-shirt is a prize in the competition.
(This T-shirt is made of organic cotton.)
3 Sandra saw giant pandas last year in China.
(Sandra stud
ies zoology.)
4 I’m moving to Belfast.
(I’ll work at a travel agency there.)
5 Padua attracts many tourists in the summer.
(Padua is very close to Venice.)
6 Frank studies science.
(His brother is a biologist.)
5.5
Non-defi ning relative
clauses
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