Welcome to England dot com.

I'm adam.

Today's lesson is a grammar lesson about everybody's favorite grammar point articles more specifically the definite article that now I'm joking about the favorite part thing.

I know what we're gonna look at is one part or one usage of the definite article.

There are so many different rules and so many different usages of the articles.

The or and or no article.

So I can't obviously look at everything.

I'm going to look at one very specific element or usage of the article.

I'm going to look at how to use or when to use or when not to use the article though with abstract now owns.

And then I'm also going to look at the same or similar situation with singular and plural noun that basically encompass or they include a whole collection of things.

And you'll understand a bit more when I get to that.

So we're gonna start with an abstract now.

Now, first of all, what does this mean?

What is an abstract noun?

So an abstract noun has a few different features.

Okay.

Different ways to recognize that it is abstract.

First of all it is intangible.

What does this mean?

It means that it is it cannot be sense.

They cannot.

You can't use the five senses to notice this thing.

You can't touch it, you can't see it, You can't smell it, you can't taste it.

Okay, so you can't use any of these uh senses, you can't hear it, but it's definitely still a real thing.

Okay.

Usually it's because this real thing is just an idea or a concept, basically it's in your mind, it's not a real thing physically or like you can't touch it, but it's in your mind, it's a real thing.

And generally it is unquantifiable means.

You can't measure it, you can't count it.

Okay, so some examples are love, happiness, society, technology and education.

Now, before you tell me what society is a real thing or technology is a real concrete thing.

It's not.

Society is a collection of people.

Okay.

The people are real.

Society is an idea.

Technology, you can talk about devices, you can talk about the internet, you can talk about smartphones, you can talk about computers, but technology is just all of these things together.

It's an idea that develops and evolves and changes education.

You can talk about schools, students and teachers, but education itself is a process.

It's an idea that we use to learn things and develop things.

Okay, so all of these are abstract.

Now.

Now, when you're using them in a sentence, are you going to put the in front of these or not?

Well, yes, that's your answer.

Some cases, Yes.

You will use the definite article.

In other cases.

You will not.

Okay, so when you're talking about these things in a general idea, you're just talking about Love as an idea as a concept.

You're not going to use the article.

If you're talking about love as a qualified thing, then you will use that.

Now, what do I mean by qualified?

If you make it very specific to a very specific person or very specific situation, then you're making it a single thing that belongs to that situation or that person.

Okay, let's look at an example.

The modern technology is changing the society now.

Is this sentence using that correctly or incorrectly?

The answer is that it is incorrectly.

You do not need the here modern technology.

I'm not talking about smartphones.

I'm not talking about computers.

I'm talking about everything that is part of technology.

It's just one general abstract idea.

So I'm not I'm not talking about anything specific within that.

Technology is changing the society.

Well, technically there are many different types of societies.

There's like asian society and Western society and Northern society in Southern society.

So all of these things are different aspects.

But when you're talking about society as an idea, you don't need the article modern technology is changing society.

Where when that you can get into into specifics in the following sentences.

Okay, let's look at another example.

Technology of the Future will change societies that embrace it.

Now, do I need any articles here?

Well, here we're talking about a specific technology Technology 100 years from now will be very different than technology today.

So then you can look at it as two different specific technologies.

So here I need the the technology of the future.

Now you'll notice that I'm using of as some is a way of qualifying the technology that I'm talking about specifically.

So this is one way of qualifying you can use of or you can use uh defining adjective clause.

The technology of the future will change societies that embrace it.

But as soon as you have an identifying adjective clause, then you need a definite article.

Because now I'm talking about very specific societies.

Only the ones that embrace it, then they're separately are the ones that don't embrace it.

So now that I have a specific group of societies, then I'm talking about a definite group and therefore I need the here general idea.

No article here specific and qualified.

Now abstract noun.

I do need the definite article.

Okay, now the same sort of the same sort of thinking, the same sort of rules applies to when we're talking about something in general.

We're talking about a whole group of this something.

So let me give you a couple more examples.

Okay, so now we're going to look at a different context for the same basic idea.

Lions are fierce animals.

The lion is a fierce animal.

Both of these sentences are correct.

If I talk about lions, I'm talking about all lions.

If I'm talking about the lion, I'm talking about this specific type of animal in this case, both worked because here I have a plural and I'm including all all of them.

Right?

The lion that we were talking about, like the genus, basically the family of animal.

I can say the dog is the most domesticated animals, for example, or dogs are the most domesticated in this case.

It's okay, because if I say the lion, I can picture all lines.

If I say the dog, I can picture all dogs, but I probably wouldn't say the dog when I'm talking about all dogs.

Let me give you an example why whales are the largest sea mammals.

Okay.

A mammal is like a type of animals, like humans are mammals as well.

So whales are, and I'm using, I'm talking about all whales.

Now here, I can say the whale is the largest.

What I'm talking about this particular type of animal.

Why would I not, Sorry, let me give you a little pointer technically this is correct, but I would not ever write the will because if you think about all the different wheels, what types of whales can you think of?

Do you know what a humpback whale or a blue whale is?

Do you know what an orca is?

Okay.

Orca is spelled like this.

If you want to look that up, if you want to look them up, look at a blue whale, look at an orca.

These two whales are completely different from each other.

The blue whale is huge.

It's like the biggest animal on the earth.

Orcas are big, but not that big.

Orcas eat meat or they eat other fish.

I should say they're hunters.

Blue whales eat plankton, like they're vegetarians, so they're very, very different animals, although technically both are whales.

So because there are such differences, I would just stick to whales without the article lions.

Generally there's not too many types.

There's a mountain lion, there's a regular safari lie like jungle line, but generally they're all the same.

And then I can talk about the lion as a general term, but this specific animal, whales because there's so many, I would just stick to the plural without the definite article.

Make it a little bit more abstract, even though I know what a whale is, because I know whales includes all of them.

It's more abstract because I'm not talking about any particular type of whale.

Okay, so I know articles are a little bit tricky, but again, it's all about practice and remember, the more you read, the more you'll see articles being used correctly and the more you'll start to have a feel for them to understand when to use them, when not to use them, etcetera.

But practice also in a little bit of an explanation always helps.

So go to invade dot com right now you can take a quiz to practice.

I'm going to give you a whole bunch of different sentences and see if you understand use the article or don't use the article for each one.

And of course don't forget you can ask me questions in the comments section.

I'll be happy to answer those for you.

In the meantime, if you like the video, please give me a like, don't forget to subscribe to my other channel.

Oh, I should mention one more thing, sorry.

Before I go, there are a few other very good videos about articles by other teachers on Ingrid.

Don't forget.

There's a search box on your envy dot com website punching the word the and you'll see all the other videos that are are available.

Study those as well.

Okay, Until then, Have a lovely day.

Bye bye.