"a" or "any"

Question

Dear all,
For a long time I have not asked any question, because my father was bedridden and I was looking after him. Now he is no more. He died in October. Now I am working as a spoken English teacher for the little children.

I have a car.
Do you have a car?
I have a brother.
Do you have a brother?
I have a headache.
Do you have a headache?
I have seen in a book for the negative and question “any’ should be used instead of “a’ Is it right or can we use both?
Thank you.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

wisdom27My father was bedridden and I was looking after him. Now he is no more. He died in October.

I am sorry to hear that. My condolences.

wisdom27I have seen in a book for the negative and question “any’ should be used instead of “a’ Is it right or can we use both?

If you are making paradigms, then stick with 'a', but grammatically, you can use sometimes both, and other grammatical changes are sometimes needed. Here are the native options for your examples:

I have a car.
Do you have a car?
I have a brother.
Do you have a brother / any brothers?
I have a headache.
Do you have a headache?

As you can see, only the 2nd case will naturally accept 'any', and the noun must be changed to plural as well.

"a" or "any"

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