Do you have “the” or “a” in your language? What language is it?

[wendyz@lemmy.ml]

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”

[s0larfl4re@sh.itjust.works]

russian, nope!

[belladonna@mujico.org]

Si exista en Español y inglés, son artículos definidos ( el, la, los, las ) y artículos indefinidos ( un, una, unos, unas )

Yes, they exist in Spanish and English, as indefinite articles ( a, an ) and definite articles, which English has one ( the )

Japanese does not to my knowledge have any articles, これは何 could mean what is this or what are these. りんご could be one or more apples.

idk

[nurashiny@hexbear.net]

In German we have three genders for words, neutral, female and male. These are spread around pretty randomly:

Die Tür / The Door is female
Das Auto /The Car is neutral
Der Bus /The Bus is male

We also have 'ein' which is the equivalent of "a" in english. Ein Auto / A Car.

The difference is the same as in german, one is specific, the other more general.

[phen@lemmy.eco.br]

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"

[wendyz@lemmy.ml]

Estou a aprender o português!!

[hyacin@lemmy.ml]

Yes.

English.

[surfinbird@lemmy.ca]

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.

[wendyz7@thelemmy.club]

Oh nooo

[fedtemis@feddit.dk]

Yes. In danish either “en” or “et” goes in front of nouns like this: “en kat” and “et hus”. This is equal to “a cat” and “a house”.

If it’s in specific, it goes at the end of the word instead like this: “katten” and “huset”. This is equal to “the cat” and “the house”.

[tiny_mouse@lemmy.ml]

I’ve heard of that one. I think the is “the” and a is “a”.

[tuck182@lemmy.world]

I believe that "a" is either "a" or "an"; it depends.

[tja@sh.itjust.works]

In german we have der/die/das for the and ein/eine for a.

[huf@hexbear.net]

hungarian.

• "the" is "a" or "az" (the word "that" is also "az")
• "a" is "egy" (the word "one" is also "egy")

i think this might be because articles are relatively new in the language.

[a_little_red_rat@hexbear.net]

If you mean the definite form, then no, Polish doesn't have it. Learning English as a kid was difficult because no teacher could explain it to me in an understandable way.

I've been learning a little Romanian lately though and it is there. Romanian is such a weird language. The vocabulary is like a mixture of five other languages, the grammar has gendered words and conjugations, yet it has a strict word order, unlike Polish that thanks to the complex grammar allows for very free reordering.

[hiddenlayer555@lemmy.ml]

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.

[nichtelias@sh.itjust.works]

Don't tell them about the noun cases though

[projectmoon@forum.agnos.is]

Icelandic has no word for "a." A noun without a definite article suffix can be either "noun" or "a noun." Then there is a suffix for definite article (epli "apple" -> eplið "the apple"). There is also a slightly more obscure hinn/hin/hið which can mean "the" as a separate word, but that's not really used in most situations.