Question

Use an appropriate article:
She has _______ French name but she’s English, not French.
a) an
b) a
c) the
d) No article

Answer 1

Hint: Articles help us understand whether something is specific or not. There are three kinds of articles: a, an, the.

Complete answer:

The article ‘a’ is used before words that begin with a consonant. The article ‘an’ is used before words that begin with a vowel and ‘the’ is used before proper nouns.
In the given sentence, the word ‘French’ begins with ‘F’ which is a consonant. Therefore, the article ‘a’ will be used. The sentence will thus read: ‘She has a French name but she’s English, not French’. So, the correct answer is “Option b”.
Option a is wrong because ‘an’ is not used before a word which begins with a consonant. It is placed before words that start with vowels such as, an egg, an apple, an orange, etc.
‘The’ in option c is incorrect because we are talking about the girl being French and not about all the French people in general. Since we are talking about a specific girl, we use ‘a’.
Option d has been given to confuse the students.

Note: Not all words which start with a vowel have the article ‘an’ before it. For example, people say ‘a university’ even though the university starts with the vowel ‘u’. This is because the word ‘university’ does not start with a vowel sound. Similarly, the universe, utopia, etc., are some words that use ‘a’ before them.