The Basics of Article Usage in English: "A," "An," and "The" Using articles such as 'a,' 'an,' and 'the' is one of the trickiest aspects of writing in English. Learn more about how to avoid common pitfalls. Using articles (a, an, the) is one of the trickiest aspects of writing in English. This difficulty is not surprising, as different languages have different rules for article usage (assuming the