DEV Community

Discussion on: Do's and Don'ts for people who are learning English

Collapse
 
jmccabe profile image
John McCabe

Having dealt with various non-native English speakers over the years, the one big thing I've had issues with is the use of 'the', 'a' and 'an', collectively known as articles. There are languages, such as Czech, where the sound (or spelling) of a word changes depending on whether you're referring to a specific item (equivalent to 'the') or any instance of it ('a' / 'an') but not in English.

So my main piece of advice to anyone from countries where this is the case is to concentrate on 'the', 'a' and 'an', as it helps native English speakers massively if you can use those correctly.

Hope this helps.