a, an and the

The little words a, an and the are called articles. On pages 132 and 133 of your book, Santoor, you fill them into a funny story about a monkey.

Use 'a' before a word that begins with a consonant sound: a monkey, a bag, a pear, a bear, a dog. Use 'an' before a word that begins with a vowel sound (a, e, i, o, u): an oak tree, an old man, an apple, an olive, an elephant.

Use 'the' when we talk about a particular thing, one we already know about. First the story says a monkey lived on an oak tree. After that, it is THE monkey, because we know which monkey. The monkey saw an old man with a bag, and then the naughty monkey snatched THE bag, the old man's bag.

Here is the rest of the story, told in short. Inside the bag were an apple, a pear, an olive and a carrot. The monkey gave the pear to an elephant and the carrot to a bear, and kept the olive and the apple in an empty box. While the monkey slept, a dog found the apple and stole it. So the monkey was left with only the olive to eat!