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In one English text book I saw "He has piano class at 5 o'clock" and somebody told me that that was a mistake meaning that indefinite article should precede the word "piano" in that sentence.

brilliant
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    If I were being pedantic, I'd say "He has a piano lesson." But "class" is often treated as a synonym of "lesson". – James K Mar 27 '23 at 17:48
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    I suspect that lesson/class is an BrE/AmE distinction. Both "he has piano class" and "he has a piano class" sound very American to me. "He has a piano lesson" sounds right, and "He has piano lesson" is just completely wrong. – Martin Bonner supports Monica Mar 29 '23 at 07:45
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    Using "class" sounds very American to this Brit. As for the article, "He has a piano lesson" or "He has piano lessons". The plural suggests that they are part of his regular schedule. Using an article and singular "lesson" suggests (slightly) that this lesson is not part of his regular schedule. Compare "I have a dentist appointment on Tuesday morning". Plural is wrong ... or cause for great sympathy. – nigel222 Mar 29 '23 at 11:03
  • American here, "class" sounds wrong if one is meeting privately with a teacher. It might work I guess if you're in a classroom with a bunch of other students learning theory or something. It's always been "piano lesson" in my experience. – Robert M. Mar 30 '23 at 23:43

6 Answers6

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Just to add another perspective for what it's worth. In American English, everyone I know would say "I have piano class" without the a. Similarly, we would say:

  1. "I have basketball practice"
  2. "I'm going to Bible study tonight"
  3. "Ms. Frizzle teaches science class at Walkerville School"
  4. "Don't forget we have rehearsal at 6:00"

This usage is limited to regularly scheduled subjects of practice or study- you would expect them to be daily or weekly. One would never say "I'm going to piano recital."

Edit: An important takeaway of this whole post is that this usage depends on the dialect spoken. Based on comments, I edited the examples so they better match the original question, while still illustrating cases where it's acceptable to include or omit an article (a, the, or both).

automaton
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    American here, 100% agree. To me, it actually sounds quite formal to include the a. – jtb Mar 28 '23 at 20:47
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    Although I do like the answer, and I think it is helpful, who would use "a" for: "I'm going to Bible class/study tonight” (because that sounds like a fixed arrangement)• "Ms. Frizzle teaches science” (class in science class is a bit redundant) • "Don't forget (the) rehearsal at 6:00” I doubt any English dialect would feel the necessity to add a in the last example. If you can find supporting evidence where the indefinite article "a" is / can be used in the last three examples then, for what it's worth, +1. – Mari-Lou A Mar 28 '23 at 21:20
  • @Mari-LouA Your last example needs a definite article, not an indefinite article, and I would definitely put it in: "Don't forget the rehearsal at six". (BrE, mid-60s) – Martin Bonner supports Monica Mar 29 '23 at 07:43
  • @MartinBonnersupportsMonica I placed the definite article in brackets. I think it works with or without the definite article. I agree the indefinite article "a" would not be used, I thought I said as much in my comment. The point I was trying to make was that three of the examples cited in the answer are not pertinent. Would any English native speaker use "a" in those 3 examples I pointed out? On the other hand, "he has piano (lesson/class)" and "he has a* piano lesson/class*” both work well. – Mari-Lou A Mar 29 '23 at 10:31
  • Irish speaker of a variety of Hiberno-English fairly close to standard RP here: In our dialect, "class" is fine as a reference either to "[a] lesson" or the activity of learning under the supervision of a teacher. – Jaime Mar 29 '23 at 10:45
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    @Mari-LouA AmE here: "Don't forget a rehearsal at 6:00" sounds non-idiomatic but "Don't forget we have a rehearsal at 6:00" sounds fine to my ears, and in that situation we could easily drop the article and have "Don't forget we have rehearsal at 6:00" and that would also be fine. – called2voyage Mar 29 '23 at 17:03
  • @Mari-LouA And for what it's worth, in the other two you pointed out I wouldn't use "a" but I also wouldn't use "a" in "I have piano class" either. – called2voyage Mar 29 '23 at 17:05
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    @Mari-LouA After some thought, I would (and do) say I'm going to a Bible study if the person I'm talking with isn't also participant and/or if I don't expect them to know that this study is a regularly scheduled activity. I agree that science class is a bit redundant in 2), but sometimes (informal) English is just like that- I added more context to make both inclusion and omission sound more natural. I see your point for 4) and changed the phrasing as called2voyage suggested – automaton Mar 29 '23 at 18:12
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1: He has a piano class at 5 o'clock
2: He has piano class at 5 o'clock

"Somebody" told the OP incorrect information. Both sentences are syntactically fine, but version #2 without the article (a) is significantly less common1.

The article-less version carries a stronger implication that the subject has regular piano lessons. Plus it somewhat implies that speaker and audience also move in social circles where piano lessons are a "familiar, normal" part of life.

1 For what it's worth, this chart suggests that the article-less AmE version of have English class has actually overtaken the "normal" version in the last couple of decades. I suspect this may reflect the relatively high proportion of non-native speakers involved, but I'm just guessing there.

As discussed in comments below, piano class is itself "unusual" compared to piano lesson, but that's another story.

Also, the article-less versions of all "types of class" are too rare to meaningfully check for a possible US/UK usage split regarding including the article or not. I think the article-less version is more likely in Am|E than BrE, but that probably just reflects the fact that piano / Bible / English classes are more common in America than Britain. The usage distinction applies to all Anglophones, but the referent for the article-less versions occurs more often in America.

FumbleFingers
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    I have the impression that omitting the indefinite article like that is more an American thing. – Michael Harvey Mar 27 '23 at 12:59
  • I don't. Unless we suppose that Americans are more likely than Brits to arrange piano lessons for their kids. Which may be true, for all I know. – FumbleFingers Mar 27 '23 at 13:00
  • Google suggests 28% of American homes have a piano (bogglingly high, imho! :). Estimates for the number of pianos in the UK vary wildly from 2 to 5 million, which implies pianos really are far more common in the US. So I would expect that to translate into identifiably different usage figures, assuming the nuance of difference I outlined above applies both sides of the pond. – FumbleFingers Mar 27 '23 at 13:09
  • *Piano class/lessons* aren't common enough to analyze usage at all on NGrams, let alone look for a US/UK usage split. For cultural reasons we can't compare US/UK usages with *Bible class, but as this chart shows, the article-less version of that one is very rare compared to have a Bible class*. – FumbleFingers Mar 27 '23 at 13:29
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    The idea of "piano class" is almost inconceivable to this Brit. "Class" to me means a teacher teaching several pupils - is piano ever taught that way??? – Colin Fine Mar 27 '23 at 15:11
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    @Colin Fine: Agreed, I would expect "lesson" rather than "class". And in that case I would expect "a piano lesson at 5" or "piano lessons at 5". – SoronelHaetir Mar 27 '23 at 15:26
  • @Colin Fine: You're quite right, of course. But the actual question is about whether or not to include the article (and if so, what does it mean to omit it?), not whether to use piano class or piano lesson**. – FumbleFingers Mar 27 '23 at 15:35
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    Actually, I don't think that Brits should be answering this question at all, because in British English, you don't go to "X class" with or without an article. You go to "X classes" or "an X lesson" or "an X course". – Colin Fine Mar 27 '23 at 15:42
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    @ColinFine: I certainly disagree on that point! If I were to read that Harry Potter had magic class* that afternoon, I wouldn't assume the phrasing had been doctored for the American market! But if he actually said* that with no article, I would assume he was talking to people who were quite familiar with the idea of being taught magic as a lesson (i.e. - probably *not* talking to Muggles! :) – FumbleFingers Mar 27 '23 at 15:52
  • @ColinFine First, it is rare for The British to refer to themselves as "Brits". Second, in British usage "class" would only be used in that way by somebody who was /instructing/, not learning: I don't believe OP distinguished between those cases but if teaching "a class" would probably be correct. – Mark Morgan Lloyd Mar 28 '23 at 07:09
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    @MarkMorganLloyd: But me and Colin (and MichaelHarvey) *are* Brits! Surely we can choose our own demonym! – FumbleFingers Mar 28 '23 at 09:44
  • Australian here. I agree with the second point by @MarkMorganLloyd. Looking at the two examples I immediately thought 1 is a teacher and 2 is a student. Also, yes, piano lessons come in classes – mcalex Mar 28 '23 at 13:57
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    Just out of interest, would anyone - America, Australian or British, whether referring to student or teacher - ever use the phrasing "he has piano lesson"? To my (British) ear that sounds plain wrong, unlike "he has piano class" (which, as an aside, sounds vaguely urgent or perhaps apologetic - e.g. "we have to go now, he has piano class"). – Paul Mar 28 '23 at 16:34
  • @JMac: My reference to "the relatively high proportion of non-native speakers involved" was intended to imply both that those nns might be more inclined to drop the article themselves (many nns struggle with when to include articles) *and* they would naturally increase the number of occasions people refer to "having [an] English class" as a regular activity. Different reasons, either or both of which may account for what looks like a fairly significant usage shift recently. – FumbleFingers Mar 28 '23 at 18:02
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    @Paul - No one would say, He has piano lesson, in AmE. It sounds just as wrong to my ears. But they would say, He has piano lessons, thereby indicating they were referring to the series not an individual lesson. – EllieK Mar 29 '23 at 12:37
  • @EllieK: you don't say "He has piano lesson" because "lesson" is strictly a countable noun, and "class" (at least in my dialect) isn't (or at least isn't quite so strictly). See my answer for an illustration of this. – Jaime Mar 29 '23 at 21:13
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    I can't believe no one has brought up "he has piano". – user3067860 Mar 29 '23 at 21:37
  • Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed. – gotube Mar 31 '23 at 16:10
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"John has Spanish class on Wednesday at 5:30" means almost the same thing as "John has a Spanish class on Wednesday at 5:30."

However, in my dialect at least, you would be more likely to use the first option if John has a regular class John between 5:30 and 6:30, whereas the second one only contains information about next Wednesday.

So in the first example you might well replace "on Wednesday", with "every Wednesday", "on Wednesdays" or even "Wednesdays". With the second example, you'd be less likely to make such changes. It would be perfectly correct grammatically to use such alternative expressions, but at least a little less likely.

There is an important grammatical difference between the two sentences, though: in the first example "class" is referring to an uncountable activity, while in the second what it refers to is a countable event: i.e., a lesson.

To illustrate the point, let's find a strictly uncountable word referring to an activity (such as 'training' for example).

Let's take (say) "Millie has Excel training next Monday". The sentence tells us (of course) about an activity that has been scheduled for Millie on Monday.

But since uncountable nouns don't take the indefinite article, you can't say "Millie has an Excel training next Monday." If you wanted to add an indefinite article for some reason, you'd have to turn "Excel training" into an adjectival phrase conditioning a countable noun: e.g., "Millie has an Excel training session next Monday."

So, going back to the questioner's original example ... "He has a piano class at 5 o'clock" can be interpreted as "He has a piano lesson at 5 o'clock", while with "He has piano class at 5 o'clock", 'class' is being used as a synonym for 'supervised practice' or some other descriptive expression describing the activity.

"He has piano lesson at 5 o'clock" would be bad grammar, because a lesson is strictly a countable noun and thus needs the indefinite article 'a'.

Jaime
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As an American who was raised in the Mid-Atlantic, I could see using class and lesson(s) interchangeably, but I would never use class without the article unless there were multiple students AND multiple lessons/sessions and even then I might still use the article.

  • He has (a) piano class every Tuesday.
  • He has piano lessons every Tuesday.
  • He has a piano class/lesson today.

Oddly, I think that if I said “He has piano classes every Tuesday” some people would think I meant multiple, separate classes on each Tuesday.

Luekutus
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To me, "John has a class" implies that he's teaching the class, or perhaps that the person being spoken to is being informed for the first time that he has a class. Californian here.

"He has class" sounds natural to me for someone who is taking a class, and weakly implies the recipient already knows that John is taking that class.

Robert M.
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  • He has class, without the piano, simply indicates that he is well-bred and refined. It has nothing to do with learning. – Chenmunka Mar 31 '23 at 06:35
  • That's not necessarily true and depends on context. A: "Will J be home tonight?" B: "No, he has class tonight" vs A: "What do you think of J?" B: "He has class and he's charming too." – Robert M. Apr 01 '23 at 00:02
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'He has piano class' would never be accepted in British English but that has nothing to do with any difference between 'class' and 'lesson.'

Who doubts 'He has piano lesson' would be no more accepted in US American than in British form? Still, that is not to do with comparing 'class' and 'lesson'.

In US American it is, and in British English it could never be acceptable to use 'he has piano class'; Brits only, ever use '… a piano class' or '… piano classes.'

Please don't suggest 'class' is US American as opposed to British English, until you can provide examples. Can you?

Robbie Goodwin
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