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Comment by eps | Hacker News Reader

This one is trivial to learn by example and by reading through a lot of books.

What's an absolutely fucking black magic is the use of articles. The frivolity with which a's and the's are sprinkled through an average sentence is genuinely infuriating. There are rules, but "they are more like guidelines". In reality asking native speakers why they used the here, but not there typically draws blank looks. Having used English daily for over 20 years I still have to resort to A/B testing the placement (or not placement!) of articles in my head and check which option sounds "more English."

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There's the StackExchange English Language Learner's board - ell.stackexchange.com; while not an English or liguistics expert, I participate there, and questions on articles are common.

- English generally wants singular nouns tagged with a determiner unless the noun is being used to refer to the type of something rather than an instance of something, or in more than a few fixed prepositional phrases.

- Determiners, including articles, signify the importance and expectation around the question "which X".

- Definite articles are a signal to the listener/reader that the they should know which X the speaker/writer means. That's all. It has nothing to do with "specificity" as often explained by others. If the listener/reader doesn't know typically they will be triggered to ask.

- The indefinite article is a signal to the listener/reader that they don't have to know or care about "which X". It will trigger a listener/reader not to ask or wonder.

- Proper nouns don't take articles because usually the question "which John?", for example, isn't a concern.

> Proper nouns don't take articles because usually the question "which John?", for example, isn't a concern.

And they do take articles when the question is a concern, in exactly the same way as other nouns. E.g., (for a highly contrived example) “The John Smith in the story of Pocahontas is not the John Smith found in a contemporary register of tradesmen in London discovered last week”.

I can basically agree with those generalizations, but in particular I've always been puzzled why British English tends to use "hospital" without any determiner, but American (really, U.S.) English almost always does. As a native US English speaker, I don't think I've heard one of my compatriots say something like "he was injured and taken to hospital." Always has "the" (without regard to the audience knowing which hospital) or "a" but I've virtually never heard an article used in British English.

I feel this one's fairly arbitrary, but "taken to hospital" at least lines up with how we talk about other public places in a generic, consumer-of-public-services sense in British English. Besides "taken to hospital", you can be "at university", "on your way to school", or "in prison", for example.

If you worked at one of those institutions, though, you'd add an article and be specific - you work "at the university" or "at the hospital". (You'd expect the listener to infer that you mean the specific university/hospital in the area, assuming there is only one.)

Edit: More colloquially, we also have "going into town" (no article, even though it's probably a specific town that is clear from context!)

The article-less usage only seems to work for generic places (hospital/school/prison/university). It doesn't belong with a noun that refers to a person but also sort-of-refers to that person's place of business. You're "going to the doctor" or "the dentist" or "the hairdresser" - never "going to doctor". This is despite the specificity often being superfluous here - the listener might not know/care which dentist you use!

It’s the general vs a specific instance.

He’s gone to hospital. (Hospital is abstract, we don’t necessarily know which one)

He’s gone to the hospital. (A specific hospital, either inferring which one by context or prior knowledge)

School, university, and prison are all institutions. Stay in school, go to university, stay out of prison.

You don't go to store though, hang out at mall, meet at restaurant, or go to bar for a drink.

I think the difference between the two usages is considering "hospital" an institution.

I also don't think a vs the requires the listener to know which specific place you're talking about, it seems to also communicate that the speaker knows what place they're talking about. "I'm going to the store to buy carrots" vs "I'm going to a store to buy carrots." Someone knows vs no one knows.

It's not arbitrary at all, at least in my dialect. "He went to hospital" and "he went to the hospital" mean different things. The first implies that he was a patient, he was there for the purpose for which the hospital exists, the second implies he went to that location for some other reason (such as bringing flowers, or working there).

Likewise "went to school" (as a scoolchild) vs "went to the school" (to collect someone, or to teach). "At university" (a student) vs "at the university" (physical location, for any reason). "Went to prison" (as a criminal) vs. "went to the prison" (to visit his brother, or to fix their telephones). "Does she go to church?" (to church services) vs. "did you go to the church?" (to see the stained glass).

"Go to the doctor" is a bit different, the doctor isn't an institution, he's a person. Although I think that implies you went for medical reasons, if you stopped by to pick up some paperwork, you might say "I have to stop at the doctor's" i.e. his rooms. But maybe that's also because you would probably talk to the receptionist anyway. But "went to the barber" implies you had a shave, while you might "stop at the barber's" to pick someone up.

Coming from another language that uses articles to English, I don't generally find the rules that difficult. It's probably a case of it being very hard to internalize a grammatical category that just doesn't exist in your native language(s) .

For example, for me it was very hard initially to get used to always explicitly putting in the subject of a sentence, because i my native language the subject is often implied (our verbs vary a lot more than in English, so saying 'I wash the dishes' - 'eu spăl vasele' instead of 'wash the dishes' - 'spăl vasele' is redundant, the verb form already tells you it's me who is doing the washing).

The rules aren't the problem, it's them not being applied consistently that is.

Look at French - exact same idea, but consistently used, so it's a piece of cake to learn. English in comparison is just... PRNG. Here you need them, here you don't, unless you do, but it would still sound better if they weren't here.

Can you give some examples? The only strange ones I can think of are to do with titles ('president X did this' instead of 'the president X did this').

Are you a native Slavic or East-Asian speaker?

the carries with it the implication of (о чем я уже говорил) or (вы знаете уже какой)

a means один _____ (но может быть вы не знаете кокой)

Ø (no article) means the noun is probably abstract.

-----BREAK BREAK-----

Where you might get all twisted up and confused is with concrete collective/uncountable nouns. These are exceptions and work very differently. Examples are: pizza, foliage, pasta, people, etc. You simply have to memorize them.

the still means the X that has a clear referent because we have already discussed it or it's clear from surrounding context

a can be one of two things: - a countable quantity of an uncountable noun, e.g., "a pizza" usually means "a unit of pizza; a pizza pie" - shorthand for a type of or category of an uncountable noun, e.g., "linguine is a pasta" means "linguine is a type of pasta"

I'm trying to think of a counter example but the golden rule for a and the is specificity. "A" refers to any thing and "the" refers to a particular thing. Notice I used any thing instead of anything: now that is quite hard to explain.

"The book rested on a shelf" and "a book rested on a shelf". You use a or the if you want to draw attention to one or the other or even both. It depends on context. The book I mentioned earlier rests on the top shelf. The top shelf is above another shelf. The other shelf is the middle shelf. If there were lots of sets of shelves then the middle shelf would be a middle shelf, unless I want to call attention to it, then it is the middle shelf. A red toy lorry lies on the middle shelf. The red lorry has a black steering wheel. The steering wheel is broken.

There is a logic to all of that - honest!

Do you have any examples? When I try to think of one in my head (admittedly, not trying very hard), it always comes down to a simple "_the_ if you're talking about a specific one, _a_ otherwise", which I'm assuming is not comprehensive.

Many times abstract nouns can omit or include the article and still be correct, the article adds specificity and sometimes it's required to be "more correct" grammar but many ESL kids don't see enough counterexamples to learn the "rule".

"These are times that try men's souls" vs. "These are the times that try men's souls."

"I need answers" vs. "I need the answers"

"I have fear that .." vs. "I have a fear that .."

Native English speakers "know" which "sound better"; many ESL kids simply do not.

Each of those pairs you present sound equally correct out of context (though in one case one is a familiar quote), but in each pair the examples have different semantics and each would sound better in different specific contexts (and sometimes they would sound equally correct even in context but have slightly different meaning, at least in connotation.)

Well, I'd replace "I have fear" with just "I fear" but that's not an issue of articles.

Actually this kind of is?

Many languages express the verb "to fear" as "to have fear" (tener miedo, avoir peur) so to insert an article ("I have a fear" ...") becomes almost psychologically problematic, it's "unlearning" plus learning.

Or you can side step the issue by avoiding chaining together long lists of adjectives.

You're spot on with the articles though. When coming from a language like Japanese that doesn't have articles the using "a" and "the" correctly is maddening.

So is for most Slavic people. Only Bulgarian has definite articles.

And, on the general theme, the Bulgarian rules for using definite articles are closer to the French rather than to the English rules (I'm fluent in French and English, learning Bulgarian ;)).

I'm not going to try for a Bulgarian example of the difference, but here's an English vs French one

"A Paris, les oranges ont l'air ..."

"In Paris, oranges appear ..."

One could possibly add a definite article to the English sentence, but one definitely cannot remove it from the French one.

I'm not a linguist, but I believe there is a direct relation between the French article and the Bulgarian one - Bulgarian articles are characteristic of the Balkan sprachbund[0], likely influenced by medieval Romanian, a romance language.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sprachbund

My Japanese teacher said learning when to use “wa” or “ga” in Japanese for us is like him learning when to use “the” or “a” in English.

The rules for wa/ga are much simpler and easier to internalize.

Absolutely this. I believe researchers themselves don't actually know how exactly the article system works. The best understanding we have involves handwavy things like "cognitive framing", "semantic maps" etc, and nothing clear enough to actually teach English learners.

Are you a Slav? With a background in Hungarian and German I don't have any difficulties with the articles.

Except, that phrase sounds better without 'the' (ie: "With a background in Hungarian and German I don't have any difficulties with articles."). Bojler eladó.

There's a website netspeak.org that allows you to compare two words in a sentence.

I presume the distinction between definite and indefinite articles aren't the problem -- is it the usage of 'a' vs 'an' that's problematic?

AIUI if the word sounds like it starts with a vowel sound, it's an an. If not, it's an a.

I have to say a word (or abbreviation, or acronym) out loud very occasionally to determine if 'an' is appropriate -- and reading the writing of North American english speakers throws me when an 'an' is used in front of a word that, in my head, starts with a consonant sound.

The obvious example being 'an herb' - because in Australia (and indeed England) the h is pronounced, consequently it would normally be 'a herb'.

There are minor mental flurries with abbreviations that some people pronounce differently, I'm sure.

No, it is the distinction between definite, indefinite and no article at all.

Coming from a language that has no articles at all, it was by far the hardest thing to learn.

Hard rules about where you should and shouldn't put articles are few. The rest is pure feeling and experience.

Yeah, as a native English speaker. Articles are among the many things I often tweak when I do a final pass through something I've written. And, if you were looking over my shoulder and asked "Why?" about the changes, a lot of the time I'd probably shrug and say "It sounds better" or "It flows better."

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