student asking question

Since it refers to a random monkey, can I use the article "a" instead of "one" in this context?

teacher

Respuesta de un hablante nativo

Rebecca

Unfortunately no. You can't use the article "a" because there are many monkeys present. If that monkey was by itself, then you could use the article "a." However, since there is more than one monkey present, it's harder to differentiate who. Using the word "one" instead of "a" in this scenario shows that you are specifying this particular monkey amongst many monkeys.

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