EXPLANATION People learning English as a second language often have difficulty knowing when to insert a, an and the in sentences - especially if articles are not used in their first language.
If we wish to refer to a specific, definite person or thing, we put the word the before it. Thus, we say, 'No pleasure can surpass the joy of parenthood.' The word the is called the definite article because it points to something definite - in this case, not just any joy but the joy of being a parent.
If we are referring to any thing or person, we use a or an. Notice that we put 'a' in front of 'parent' because we are not talking about being the parent of a particular child - just the general idea of being a parent (like other parents). However, if we were talking about particular people, then we would use the definite article and say, for example, 'She is the mother of the twins.' (We are referring to a definite mother and definite twins.)
Let us look at another example. If we are discussing what to do, we might say, 'Let's watch a movie.' At this stage, we do not have a definite movie in mind, so we use a, the indefinite article. Someone with a definite movie in mind might say, 'I would like to watch the latest James Bond movie.'
Because a is a vowel, it would sound clumsy if we put it before another vowel, so we use an instead in those situations. Instead of saying, 'That was a interesting movie' we say, 'That was an interesting movie.'
Something that causes confusion is that we do not put articles before every noun, as is the case with the italicised word of each of the following. Note that each of these nouns denotes a broad general concept.
- Society has changed.
- Patience is a virtue.
- Children tend to mimic their parents.
- He is addicted to coffee.
- The most widely played game is soccer.
- The police are gathering evidence.
The best way to pick up the usage of articles (and other aspects of English) is to read a lot so that usage becomes intuitive.