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I seem to have dropped most use of articles in my written English, however they seem to fall in correct(?) places in my spoken English.

And as there are quite few of special cases when you would not use article at all, I'd love to find a website where I can paste my text and it would show where an article should be. It's not crucial to known which article.

I hope that after using such page for a few months it would remedy to a passable degree my use of articles.

RegDwigнt
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ytti
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  • I honestly don't believe such a website exists. If one did, it would be highly unreliable, computers do not "read" texts (at least I don't think they do?) otherwise we would just copy and paste entire novels and ask them to give us a summary, in time for our exams. – Mari-Lou A Jun 16 '13 at 09:53
  • I see no technical obstacle writing lexical analysis which has superior article comprehension to mine. – ytti Jun 16 '13 at 09:55
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    You may very well be right. I am not a computer analyst or geek, but articles are not fixed, a lot depends on the context of the situation, on the meaning you want to convey. Sometimes it is idiomatic, sometimes there are no rational reasons. For example: He's going to hospital, he's broken his leg. vs. He's going to the hospital to visit a friend there. – Mari-Lou A Jun 16 '13 at 10:08
  • If you cannot define it, you cannot understand it. Exception is merely an additional rule. – ytti Jun 16 '13 at 10:14
  • Funnily enough, you are correct. There are "rules" governing the use of the definite article in the hospital phrase I used to illustrate how articles appear to be unpredictable. Whether a computer could be programmed to recognize those differences, I'm not so sure. I'm sure someone out there will know the answer. – Mari-Lou A Jun 16 '13 at 10:43
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    Yitti. Yes, but English is relatively 'low' on rules and very 'high' on exceptions - and then, of course, there are the exceptions to the exceptions. So much is idiomatic, or varies between regions, etc.. There are also the cases where including or omitting the article actually changes the meaning - in those cases, the computer would have to know what you were actually meaning (i.e. read your mind!) before it could ascertain whether or not to insert the article. I agree whole heartedly with @Mari-LouA on this. – TrevorD Jun 16 '13 at 11:20
  • To further prove my point how complicated and subtle the use of the articles, the and a/an can be see: There is X vs. there is a/an X. – Mari-Lou A Jun 16 '13 at 11:23
  • I think this is a question that's helpful for all English language learners, so I'm going to see if they'd like it moved there. –  Jun 16 '13 at 11:25
  • In the U.S. (at least in the part where I live), if we break a leg we go to the hospital. But just a few miles away, in Canada, they go to hospital. – Andreas Blass Jun 17 '13 at 01:48

1 Answers1

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I'm sorry. You're going to have to improve your use and learning the hard way. But infinitely more rewarding! Study and practice. The Purdue University has this page on articles, this might help you.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/

Light bulb episode! You could also try some English online quizzes:

http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/esl-english-articles-new2.html

http://wps.ablongman.com/long_faigley_penguinhb_2/30/7853/2010407.cw/index.html

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/artikel.htm

Mari-Lou A
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