The definite article - the

The definite article the is the same for all genders in singular and in plural.
the boy, the girl, the cat, the computers

If the following word begins with a vowel, we speak [], if the following word begins with a consonant, we speak [].

[]	[]
the following word starts with a spoken consonant	the following word starts with a spoken vowel
the girl	the English girl
the book	the blue book
the school	the old school
the unit Here a [] is pronounced at the beginning of the word.	the uncle Here a [] is pronounced at the beginning of the word.

We have listed some examples in the following table. There you can see when we use the definite article and when we don't.

without the definite article	with the definite article
general words (indefinite)	general words (definite)
Life is too short. I like flowers.	I've read a book on the life of Bill Clinton. I like the flowers in your garden.
names of persons on the singular, relatives	family names in the plural
Peter and John live in London. Aunt Mary lives in Los Angeles.	The Smiths live in Chicago.
public buildings, institutions, means of transport (indefinite)	public buildings, institutions, means of transport (definite)
Mandy doesn't like school. We go to school by bus. Some people go to church on Sundays.	The school that Mandy goes to is old. The bus to Dresden leaves at 7.40. The round church in Klingenthal is famous.
names of countries in the singular; summits of mountains; continents; towns	names of countries in the plural; mountain ranges; regions
Germany, France; Mount Whitney, Mount McKinley; Africa, Europe; Cairo, New York	the United States of America, the Netherlands; the Highlands, the Rocky Mountains, the Alps; the Middle East, the west of Australia
single islands	groups of islands
Corfu, Bermuda, Sicily	the Bahamas, the British Isles, the Canaries
parks; lakes; streets	name with of-phrase; oceans; seas; rivers
Central Park, Hyde Park; Lake Michigan, Loch Ness; 42nd Street, Oxford Street	the Statue of Liberty, the Tower (of London), the Isle of Wight; the Atlantic (Ocean); the Mediterranean (Sea); the Nile, the Rhine, the Suez Canal
months, days of the week (indefinite)	months, days of the week (definite)
The weekend is over on Monday morning. July and August are the most popular months for holidays.	I always remember the Monday when I had an accident. The August of 2001 was hot and dry.

We use the seasons of the year (spring, summer, autumn, winter) with or without the definite article.

in summer or in the summer

The American English word for autum >fall<>

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Sometimes we use the article and sometimes we do not. It often depends on the context. Watch the following example:

The student goes to school.
The mother goes to the school.

In the first sentence we do not use the definite article, in the second we do. The student goes to school for its primary purpose, so we do not use the article.

The mother might talk to a teacher, for example. She visits the school for a different reason. That's why we use the definite article in the second sentence.

An Online Gift to Indonesia’s Pupils

Through his 16 Web sites, Phillip Rekdale offers commentary and critiques of corruption in education, as well as educational advice, tools and forums for teachers and students of all ages. Built in 1999, his site Perdidikan.net averages two million hits per month. (JG Photo/See Jie Yi) An Online Gift to Indonesia’s Pupils You know your ambitions are large when your aim is to single-handedly work against the corruption and negligence in Indonesia’s education system. But despite knowing the extent of the daunting task, an Australian man has been doing it for more than 10 years in his quest to improve the lot of the country’s teachers and students. “When my wife asks me, ‘If nobody cares, why do you care?’ I tell her, ‘Because I care for it,’ ” said Phillip Rekdale, who describes himself as a “western suburban guy from Melbourne.” The 61-year-old specializes in education technology, a field that studies how learning can be enhanced with the effective use of technology. His own preferred method of affecting change in Indonesia’s education system is through the Internet. His first Web site, created in 1999, catered to senior secondary school students. Called Pendidikan.net, (Education.net), the site has since expanded to encompass 16 different sites to meet the needs of students and teachers, including information about applying to universities, resources for language and communication practice and information on scholarships. All of these sites were set up, maintained and have been regularly updated out of Rekdale’s own pocket for the past 11 years. He is the sole administrator for all of them, and Pendidikan.net receives about two million hits a month. One of the problems Rekdale constantly addresses on his sites is the corruption and complacency that plagues educational progress in the country. “The education system in Indonesia is in many ways similar to rearranging the deck of chairs on the Titanic,” he said. “Everyone is kept busy as if they are doing something useful, but the ship is still going to sink anyway unless we start doing the right things.” This ship is going under, he said, because money that should have been spent on better maintenance of school buildings, manpower and other resources are leaking through “holes in the system.” On his site, Rekdale frequently posts articles on his sites and on his Facebook page that highlight ongoing corruption problems. He said he hopes to spur discussion and stimulate people to think about the “right” issues, such as lax standards in education curriculum, diverting of educational funds away from rural areas and poor wages for the country’s teachers. Rekdale also believes that universities here are not equipping their students with relevant skills. He cited a report by Media Indonesia that said there are more than 30,000 unemployed college graduates in Bekasi, West Java. “Students need to contextualize what they’ve learned with the real world,” he said. “I hope that this forum will contribute to more active learning in university and relate it back to the real world.” Some of his criticisms, such as the problems with computer-based teaching, are more controversial than others, stirring up heated discussions on his Web site and Facebook forums. But the arguments have also gained him some admirers. Ridowalynov Patilsson Sr., who recently graduated from the Indonesia University of Education in Bandung, is one of Rekdale’s 7,000 Facebook followers. He said he first stumbled upon Rekdale’s Web sites while working on his undergraduate final-year thesis. “Although his view can sometimes be very radical, it does not reduce my interest to at least read his articles once in a while,” he said in an e-mail interview. “Pendidikan.net is a very useful source for all readers, especially if you’re a teacher or a student like me. “For example, there are many articles that criticize government policies, but it does not only talk about what is wrong, but it always point to where should it go.” Rekdale first came to Indonesia in 1983 under the auspices of an Australian aid program. “When I first stepped on the tarmac of the old Halim Perdanakusuma airport, it immediately felt like home to me.” After five years of working to develop Indonesia’s education technology sector, he returned to Australia. But by 1998, he was back in the archipelago, working at the Ministry of Education. Seeing the lack of online educational resources for Indonesian students, the tech-savvy teacher created Pendidikan.net in 1999. “I was shocked that there was no proper forums for people to talk,” Rekdale said. “Many of the ‘discussions’ were not well-led, had no direction and were based on common understandings which were not necessarily correct. I wanted a platform where people were able to discuss topics in depth.” Over the years, Rekdale has created more than 150 Web sites, covering a range of topics apart from his educational work. He said he did not intentionally plan to shepherd an entire “education network” but it grew out of demand. Arief Rahman, an Indonesian education advocate who was jailed for his human-rights activism during the Suharto era and is a representative to Unesco’s International Bureau of Education, met Rekdale during a school development project at the Ministry of Education in 1998. “He has a humanistic and holistic approach to education,” Arief said. “He looks at learning not from a teacher-centered approach, but from a pupil-centered approach.” For all his time, effort and pennies poured into an apparently bottomless pit, Rekdale said it has all been worth it. “If I’m a Web site manager, I would have committed suicide 10 years ago,” he said. “But I’m an educator who is looking for change, that’s why I do it.”