They are a type of determiner and they go before a noun. A/an before a noun shows that what is referred to is not already known to the speaker, listener, writer and/or reader (it is the indefinite article): Do you have a car? Do you live in a house? No, actually, I live in an apartment. Do you think it is better to drop ''the'' where there is confusion about whether to use the'' or not? Most organisations take a direct object — what does this mean? Thank you very much for your previous answer. You're the fifth person to ask me that question. used to say that the particular person or thing being mentioned is the best, most famous, etc. In this use, the is usually given strong pronunciation: Harry's Bar is the place to go. You don't mean you met the Will Smith (= the film star), do you? to generalise about a whole class or species, usually of plants or animals. A singular noun is used for this purpose. The first example means ‘ The elephant species is hunted.’. Unfortunately, the elephant is still hunted for its tusks. The snowdrop is the first flower to arrive in the new year. The meaning of DOES is present tense third-person singular of do; plural of doe. The is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the only definite article in English. There are two main ways to pronounce this little word, based largely on what word follows it. If the is followed by a word which begins with a consonant sound (such as water), then it's pronounced \t͟hə\—that is, with the same vowel sound as the word of. (used, especially before a noun, with a specifying or particularizing effect, as opposed to the indefinite or generalizing force of the indefinite article a or an ). the book you gave me; Come into the house. Master the grammar rules for do and does. Learn the base verb rule, explore do/does vs. am/is/are, avoid common mistakes, and take our quiz! Basically, an article is an adjective. Like adjectives, articles modify nouns. English has two articles: the and a/an. The is used to refer to specific or particular nouns; a/an is used to modify non-specific or non-particular nouns. We call the the definite article and a/an the indefinite article. the = definite article. a/an = indefinite article.