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Hello dipakrgandhi,
In my explanation I said we can use no article + plural countable noun or uncountable noun. 'Elephant' is a countable noun, so we need to say
Elephants are an impressive sight.
'The whales' would refer to a particular group of whales, not whales in general. For example, you might talk about 'the whales of the Atlantic Ocean' or similar.
When we say
A whale is an impressive sight
we are talking about a characteristic that is typical or representative of whales: being impressive is one of the things that goes with being a whale.
The reason we can't say
A whale might become extinct
is because being extinct is not something that happens to a whale, and not something which defines what a whale is.
The changes in 'love marriage' would be the same as the examples I gave. The choice of noun does not affect this.
Peter
The LeanEnglish Team
Hi Sheikh Salauddin,
Sometimes phrases like 'John's' are considered possessive forms of nouns and sometimes they are classed as a kind of possessive determiner. Since our grammar is a learner's grammar, we don't get into that kind of issue, but I expect you could find some discussion of it in the English Language and Usage StackExchange if you're interested.
'If I were a king!' is technically an incomplete sentence, but would probably be fine in most cases if the result clause were clear from the situation or context.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi cbenglish,
When we speak about what is explained in radio, television, newspaper or new website reports, we also refer to this as 'the news' (with the definite article 'the' always used). So when you speak about 'listening to the news', it's correct to say 'the news' (and just 'news' is not correct).
You could say just 'read newspapers' instead of 'read the newspapers'. If you say 'the newspapers', there is some suggestion that the reader knows which newspapers you're talking about, but not necessarily. If it were my essay, I would most likely say 'the newspapers', as we often use 'the' here even when it's not completely clear which newspapers we're talking about.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Risa warysha,
A quantifier is a type of determiner. The relevant wikipedia page (here) contains a list of the most common kinds of determiners.
Pre-, post- and central describe the positions of different determiners.
Pre-determiners come first, central determiners come next and postdeterminers come last.
Example: all the thirty women
Here, 'all' is a pre-determiner, 'the' is a central determiner and 'thirty' is a postdeterminer.
There is some debate as to whether this terminology is helpful. Postdeterminers often have adjectival characteristics, for example, which other determiners do not, and are not only identified by their position.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mohd Zaffar,
Both forms are possible here. Without a wider context there is nothing to show which would be preferable.
Generally, we use past simple for sequences of actions (first... later...). We use past perfect when an earlier action has some relevance to or influence on a later action.
You can read more about the past perfect on these pages:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/b1-b2-grammar/past-perfect
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/english-grammar-reference/past-perfect
Please note that we are on a page on the topic of articles and determiners, not the past perfect. We ask users to post questions on relevant pages as it helps to keep the comments sections useful for other users who may have similar questions.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mohd Zaffar,
Both sentences are grammatically correct. Which one you need will depend upon the context and what you are trying to say.
The first sentence describes an ongoing situation. It tells us that you still know 'them' and up to the present time have not had any disputes.
The second sentence describes finished time. It tells us that when you knew 'them' there were no disputes, but we understand that you no longer know them for some reason, so there cannot now be any disputes. You might use this sentence if the situation has changed:
They used to live in our time and we never had any disputes with them. They moved away last year.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mohd Zaffar,
That's a lot of questions! I'll answer a few and then if you have any others, please ask us again, though please limit yourself to one or two per comment.
The first sentence is correct, though the preposition 'to' is needed before 'Agra'.
As for your questions about verbs like 'suggest' and 'feel' and the patterns that follow them, this really depends on the specific verb being used. In other words, each verb is followed by different patterns. You can find information about these patterns in a good dictionary -- for example, see this page on the verb 'suggest'.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mohd Zaffar,
You need to use 'to' here so the first sentence is correct and the second one is incorrect.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Mohd Zaffar,
This is really just a question of verb patterns. Certain verbs are used with a to-infinitive and others are not. It is a simply a question of learning which are which; there is nothing about the verb which tells you what kind of pattern it follows, I'm afraid.
suggest someone + subjunctive (I suggest you go)
feel it important that someone + subjunctive (I feel it important that he go)
You can read more about different verb patterns in the relevant section (here) – us the links on the right to move to specific areas.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello chandersheel,
These are both auxiliary verbs. We use 'did' to form questions and negative in the past tense:
She went to the shop.
Question: Did she go to the shop? / Where did she go?
Negative: She didn't go to the shop.
'Would' is a modal verb and we use it in a number of ways. You can see those ways on this page.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello dipakrgandhi,
The convention for titles is to capitalise each word other than what are considered 'grammar words' (articles, prepositions etc). However, a specific style will be set by each publication and some prefer to use normal capitalisation, for example. The best way to familiarise yourself with these styles is to look at a range of newspapers and other media sources and pay attention to how they do it.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello p t balagopal,
The definite article is required here as the sentence contains its own clarification of which application is being referred to. You can use either 'the revival' or 'revival'. However, we would not use any article before 'account'. When a noun is numbered in this way we use the zero article. Thus, we would say 'go to house number 3' not 'the house'.
The setence would therefore be as follows:
The application for revival of account no 3857DF received from the depositor, Mr. John, is sent herewith.
This is a very formal phrasing, however, and not the normal way we would normally phrase it. I think we would use 'enclosed' (if the application is part of a letter) or 'attached' (if sent electronically):
Please find enclosed the application for revival of account no 3857DF, received from the depositor, Mr. John.
Please find attached the application for revival of account no 3857DF, received from the depositor, Mr. John.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Akong,
The sentence is wrong. The correct sentence would be as follows:
What James did is wrong.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Akong,
Both are correct and the structure of both is that of a wh-cleft sentence. 'what' acts as a kind of pronoun here.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello amol,
The Germans are patriots is the correct option.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello cbenglish,
We use the definite article (the) when the noun is known and/or identified; in other words, when a specific item is referred to and not just any item or all items in general.
In your sentence the item is specified. You are not just talking about any girls, but about the specific girls who are sitting over there. Therefore the definite article is needed and the sentence without 'the' is incorrect.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ivánnn,
The verb 'refer' always occurs with the preposition 'to'. It is what we call a dependent preposition.
You can read more about these on this page.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello cbenglish,
The sentence is correct both with and without the article, and both have a general meaning.
It is possible to use different articles with a general meaning but there are some changes in emphasis and even meaning. I wrote quite a long explanation of this in answer to another use a while ago. You can find that post here"
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/comment/121889#comment-121889
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Akong,
Yes, you can use 'that' and the sentence is grammatically correct. 'that', like 'the', is a determiner, but only 'the' is a definite article.
By the way, you only need to submit your posts once. We check all comments before they are published and so it can take some time before your comments appear on our site. Thanks in advance for your cooperation with this.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello aseel aftab,
The word 'all' has many uses. You can find good guides here:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/quantifiers/all
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/all_1
However, I would suggest that you try not to worry too much about the labels given to particular parts of speech. We can use 'all' as a pronoun followed by of (all of them) or following an object pronoun (them all), but identifying the name of the form is much less important than knowing what it means and how it is used.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello aseel aftab,
All can be used with general or specific meaning; all of can only be used with specific meaning:
Both can be used with nouns (as above).
Both can be used with possessive adjectives (all your cats / all of your cats).
We can only use all of before pronouns:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello aseel aftab,
Words can have different uses, so a word like 'fast' can be an adjective (a fast car), and adverb (go fast) and a verb (fast for a week), for example.
With regard to the names given to these forms, please see my answer to your other question below.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team