The 

man ate an extravagant meal at a fancy restaurant. Ritzy! This classy

sentence uses three of some of the most commonly used words: the, a,
and an. However, there is more to these words than simply the number of
times that we use them. These three words belong to a class of words
known as articles. If you want to become a grammar master, it is really
important to know how to use articles because of how often they show up
in our sentences.
What is an article?
An article is a word that is used to indicate that a noun is a noun without
describing it. For example, in the sentence Nick bought a dog, the
article a indicates that the word dog is a noun. Articles can also modify
anything that acts as a noun, such as a pronoun or a noun phrase.
Often, a sentence needs an article before a noun in order to make
grammatical sense. For example,

 Incorrect: I have box.

 Correct: I have a box.
 Incorrect: She opened door.
 Correct: She opened the door.
 Incorrect: French is spoken by French.
 Correct: French is spoken by the French.
Article examples
In English, there are only three articles. They are:

 the
 a
 an
The following sentences show examples of how we use articles in sentences:

 The zoo has an elephant enclosure.

 I have a younger brother and an older sister.
 The ancient Romans built the Coliseum.
 Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Types of articles
We can separate the articles into two different types.

Definite articles
In English, the only definite article is the word the. A definite article has
several roles that it performs.
1. A definite article is used to refer to unique things or groups. A definite
article can indicate that something is unique and only one of it exists.
 She gazed at the moon. (The Earth only has one moon)
 We sailed on the Pacific Ocean. (There is only one body of water
named Pacific Ocean.)
2. A definite article is used to refer to specific things that both the speaker
and the listener know the identity of.
 Harold went to the store. (Both the speaker and the listener know
specifically which store Harold went to.)
 The kids are playing outside. (Both the speaker and listener
know the identity of the kids.)
In writing and speech, the word the is typically used after the speaker or
writer first introduces a thing that they are talking about. The word the then
references back to this same thing. For example,
 We saw birds by the lake. The birds were building nests. (The
word the indicates that the birds in the second sentence are the
same birds mentioned in the first sentence.)