diff --git a/sparse/numba_backend/_coo/common.py b/sparse/numba_backend/_coo/common.py
index 491e1f1e..85daaa5d 100644
--- a/sparse/numba_backend/_coo/common.py
+++ b/sparse/numba_backend/_coo/common.py
@@ -683,7 +683,7 @@ def _replace_nan(array, value):
 
 def nanreduce(x, method, identity=None, axis=None, keepdims=False, **kwargs):
     """
-    Performs an `NaN` skipping reduction on this array. See the documentation
+    Performs a `NaN` skipping reduction on this array. See the documentation
     on [`sparse.COO.reduce`][] for examples.
 
     Parameters
diff --git a/sparse/numba_backend/_sparse_array.py b/sparse/numba_backend/_sparse_array.py
index cc9ac584..a56e320c 100644
--- a/sparse/numba_backend/_sparse_array.py
+++ b/sparse/numba_backend/_sparse_array.py
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ def __init__(self, shape, fill_value=None):
             shape = (shape,)
 
         if not all(isinstance(sh, Integral) and int(sh) >= 0 for sh in shape):
-            raise ValueError("shape must be an non-negative integer or a tuple of non-negative integers.")
+            raise ValueError("shape must be a non-negative integer or a tuple of non-negative integers.")
 
         self.shape = tuple(int(sh) for sh in shape)