I am studying English language. I have read a rule that there must be used article 'a/an' before profession. This rule is written, for example, this blog post says, "You'll see that English puts an indefinite article in front of a profession but German doesn’t." But I think that this rule is not working if I mention profession second, third time. For example I think I could say something next:
Our teacher of english language said that we need to use articles. The teacher said talked about differences between two types of articles.
The question is: is it okay to use 'the' in second mention. And second question: may I say article 'a' before teacher in the second sentence from example.
Best Answer
The same blog post you mention says:
So, when you say:
we now know about the teacher. Therefore:
Is the natural way to say it, because the teacher was mentioned in the previous sentence. You wouldn’t use a instead of the, because you are talking about the teacher you already mentioned.
You could word something this way, though:
By the way, the “rule” you initially cited is trying to say that you don’t use the word teacher without any kind of modifier. In other words, you would NOT say this:
We don’t generally begin sentences with words like teacher, carpenter, doctor, or policewoman. Instead, we use article, possessive pronouns, or some other determiner: