Do you have “the” or “a” in your language? What language is it?
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Funny story. I know an old Chinese man who has a stutter. When he starts a sentence he often repeats the the the the the before he gets going. It sounds like removed removed removed. So far no one has confronted him but I always worry it will happen some day.
A very bad word that we’re not even supposed to say on the internet, believe it or not.
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I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
No we don't (Slovak)
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I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
Yes, we do.
"Il/lo/la/i/gli/le" instead of "the", the precise article is chosen taking in consideration gender and plurality. We even have elliptic forms with " l' ," for words starting with a vowel.
Then we have "un/uno/una" instead of "a". Again elliptic form "un' " for feminine words starting with a vowel.
Italian here 🤌
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I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
No (Lithuanian)
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I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
wrote on last edited by [email protected]No. (Finnish). I remember watching english speaking social media influencers Dave Cad (UK) and Chachi Gonzales (USA) who both moved to Finland saying that their english have gone worse through the years because they have begun to drop ”the” and ”a/an” in conversations just like many Finns do when they speak english.
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In german we have der/die/das for the and ein/eine for a.
And also completely unhinged declensions for them... Really, WTF Germany?
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I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
Yes, it's "le/la" and "un/une" in French
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I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
o, a, os, as for "the"
um, uma, uns, umas for "a"
both lists mean: singular masculine, singular feminine, plural masculine, plural feminine.
and if the gender is unknown or mixed you use the masculine
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Portuguese, we do and we use it in everything. Even something simple like "for my Father" most of us say "for the my Father".
"Sou filho do meu pai"
Translating literally becomes:
"am son of the my Father"
wrote on last edited by [email protected]That's not true for all Portuguese speakers. Most brazilian northeasterners don't use it as you described, as it's unnecessary.
Edit: The way I would say the sentences above:
"Pra meu pai"
"Sou filho de meu pai" -
I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
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I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
People have covered German and French. Esperanto has the genderless "la" for "the"; there is no "a" article. "Here is a house" is "Ĉi tie estas domo," or "Jen estas domo," or even simply "Estas domo" depending on what you mean. But there's no article.
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That's not true for all Portuguese speakers. Most brazilian northeasterners don't use it as you described, as it's unnecessary.
Edit: The way I would say the sentences above:
"Pra meu pai"
"Sou filho de meu pai"I was gonna edit the comment to add a similar note right after posting but I was already half asleep and apparently I didn't do it.
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I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
Definite article. I can't believe I remembered that from English classes.
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I’ve heard of that one. I think the is “the” and a is “a”.
Also sometimes "an".
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Also sometimes "an".
Truly a terrible language.
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I do. The is “el/la” and a is “un/una”.
In my dad’s language and my second language, it’s “the” and “a”
We don't have either an 'a' or a 'the', but we have a 'that' and it's 'o'.
A bird = Kuş => Bir Kuş
If we need to specify that it is singular (like you often do with 'a' we say 'one' aka 'bir' instead)
This language is Turkish, by the way.
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Mandarin:
No "the," you just say the noun and that's it.
"A" or any other quantity of a noun is generalized as a number, followed by a character indicating quantity, followed by the noun. "An apple" is 一个苹果 (yi ge ping guo), 一 literally means one, 个 is the character that denotes quantity (it's the most common one but some nouns have different quantity adjectives), 苹果 is apple. Two is an exception because there's a special character for it that's different from the number two (两个苹果 as opposed to 二个苹果), but every other number quantity is the same as the number itself.
I like Chinese as a language
