As you learned in Chapter 3, the French articles le, la, l' and les (definite articles) and une, une, des (indefinite articles) accompany nouns and correspond to the English “the” (definite article) and “a” (indefinite article). Articles serve a grammatical purpose by showing how the word is to be treated in the sentence — whether it is referring to a specific object or referring to things in a more general sense. It tells you how the noun fits and relates to the other words in the sentence.