diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f1e552fa0..5b620fefb 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ Overview
 --------
 
 [MessagePack](http://msgpack.org/) is an efficient binary serialization
-format, which lets you exchange data among multiple languages like JSON,
+format, which lets you exchange the data among multiple languages like JSON,
 except that it's faster and smaller. Small integers are encoded into a
 single byte and short strings require only one extra byte in
 addition to the strings themselves.