This is elephant (an,a,the) | Wyzant Ask An Expert

An is the article to use in front elephant. Additionally, an is used as the article in front of any word that begins with a vowel.

Hello! You asked about the article for elephant in the sentence "This is ___ elephant."

The article that you want depends on the meaning you want to convey.

If you are referring to a specific elephant, you would say "This is the elephant." In context, this could look something like, "This is the elephant that we were talking about yesterday."

If you are clarifying that the large grey animal with a trunk is called an "elephant", then you would say "This is an elephant." This is the article you would use most often.

You would not say "This is a elephant" because the word elephant begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o, or u). If instead you wanted to say "This is a tiger," that would be correct, because the word tiger does not begin with a vowel.