Words for food, and choosing a, an or the
You can choose between a, an, the and no article in the sentences you write and say about food.
If your first language is Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Russian, it has no articles, the small words a, an and the. English asks you to choose one of them, or none, before almost every noun.
Food is a good place to practise, because so many food nouns are uncountable. You eat an apple, but you buy bread and drink milk.
Warm-up
Breakfast, three ways
Three people describe their breakfast. Only one of them gets every article right.
Which sentence is correct?
Words for food
Eating and diet
A food people eat so often that it makes up much of their diet. Rice is a staple across much of Asia.
A meal sold already cooked, so you only heat it up. Ready meals save time, but many are high in salt.
Food changed in a factory, often with salt, sugar or fat added. Processed food usually keeps longer than fresh food.
Made at home from raw ingredients. Home-cooked meals are often cheaper than takeaways.
The amount of food served to one person. Restaurant portions are often bigger than people need.
Rules about what a person can eat, for their health or their beliefs. Two guests have dietary requirements: one is vegan, and one cannot eat nuts.
Keeping and wasting food
Likely to go bad quickly. Fish, milk and soft fruit are perishable.
Keep food safe to eat for longer. People once preserved fish with salt and smoke.
Become bad to eat or drink. Milk goes off quickly in hot weather.
The last day a food is safe to eat, printed on the pack. Check the use-by date before you buy meat.
Food not eaten at the end of a meal. We often have the leftovers for lunch the next day.
Food that is thrown away. It is uncountable. Food waste is a problem for shops and for families.
Grammar: a, an, the or no article
Almost every noun in English needs a decision: a, an, the, or nothing at all. Three questions settle it, in this order.
Three questions for every noun
- 1Can you count it?
One apple, two apples: countable. Rice, bread, milk and advice: uncountable. A singular countable noun almost always needs a word in front of it: an apple, the apple, my apple.
- 2Does the reader know which one?
Then use the. The reader knows when you have mentioned it before, when there is only one, or when the words after it say which: the soup I ordered, the price of rice.
- 3If not, is it one thing or things in general?
One singular countable thing: a or an, as in I ordered a salad. Things in general, plural or uncountable: no article, as in Vegetables are cheap at the market and Sugar is bad for your teeth.
Food nouns that catch people out
Bread, rice, meat, fruit, milk, food. Count them with a container or a piece: a loaf of bread, a bowl of rice, a piece of fruit.
A chicken is the bird, and chicken is the meat. A cake is a whole one, and cake is what you eat a slice of.
An uncountable food noun becomes countable when you mean kinds of it: processed foods, tropical fruits, a soft cheese.
No article for a meal in general: have lunch, after dinner. Add one when an adjective describes the meal: a quick lunch.
Five mistakes to stop making
- The fast food is unhealthy. This is about fast food in general, so drop the: Fast food is unhealthy.
- Can I have a bread? Bread is uncountable: some bread, or a slice of bread.
- My mother is good cook. Cook is singular and countable, so it needs a: a good cook.
- Price of rice has gone up. The words of rice say which price, so it takes the.
- an unique dish: unique starts with a y sound, so it takes a. The sound decides, and an hour works the same way.
Watch me do one
A sentence from a Part 1 answer, with three gaps: I usually have ___ breakfast at home, but ___ lunch I had today came from ___ food stall near my office.
Gap one is breakfast, a meal in general. Meals take no article, so nothing goes there.
Gap two is a meal again, lunch, but a particular one this time. The words after it, I had today, tell the listener which lunch, so it takes the.
Gap three is food stall. I can count stalls, this one is singular, and the listener doesn't know which one yet. So it takes a.
The sentence: I usually have breakfast at home, but the lunch I had today came from a food stall near my office.
I'd reject a breakfast in gap one. With an adjective you can say a quick breakfast, but I usually have a breakfast sounds wrong.
Practice with Elita5 questions
Five questions. Four are about articles, and the last one checks the food words.
A general statement
Which article, if any, belongs in the gap? The sentence comes from an essay about diet.
______ fast food is often high in salt and fat.
Two gaps, two reasons
Write a, an or the in each gap.
It was hour before food we ordered arrived.
Write no more than 1 word in each gap.
One article too many
This is a short paragraph from an essay. One sentence has an article mistake. Choose it.
Which sentence contains the error?
Rice with your curry
You are ordering in a restaurant. Choose the correct request.
Which sentence is correct?
Food words
Match each word to its meaning.
Use it
Lunch where you live
Write four or five sentences about lunch on a working day where you live. Before you send it, check the article in front of every noun.
What do people in your town or city usually eat for lunch on a working day, and what happens to the food they do not finish? Use at least three words from this lesson.
0 / 50 words
Set up your learning path at the top of this lesson to get band-specific feedback.
Before you go
Before each noun, check whether you can count it and whether the reader knows which one you mean.
Use no article for things in general: Fast food is cheap. Vegetables are good for you.
Use the when the words after a noun say which one: the price of rice, the soup I ordered.
Give uncountable food a container or a piece: a loaf of bread, a bowl of rice.
Next: The next lesson is a reading passage on how people kept food before refrigerators, with a table and notes to complete from it.