A question to Anglos:
Is it, in general, a better strategy to skip articles rather than use them incorrectly? I have a great deal of problem with articles as they simply don't exist in my language (the closest equivalent would be "ten/ta/to", broadly translated into "this specific one"). Very often I feel like the articles I use are unnatural and despite my fairly good education I can't simply wrap my head around them. It's just something entirely alien.
Robert Heinlein wrote in a kind of Russianesque patois in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, skipping articles and pronouns wherever he could, creating constructions very Slavic in nature, and because of that - highly understandable to me. If Slavs were in charge of the English language, it would probably look like Heinlein's writing.
So - is it better to skip articles, or to use them incorrectly? Which feels more apt?
well you used them just fine in your post
i can't possibly see what's so confusing and unnatural about a simple specification of completion/uniqueness
>>57608057
Native English speakers are pretty lenient with foreign accents and grammar in English. You'll just sound like a slav which isn't really that big of a deal and everyone will understand you just fine. It's stupid to beat yourself up over the fact that you can't speak a language 100% exactly like the natives as opposed to 95% or even 99%, which is almost impossible for most people. You're using articles just fine now as is.
Also I believe that the direct articles in most languages evolved from demonstratives, so your comparison is closer than you think.
I don't get it. What is so hard about using articles correctly?
>>57608812
It's not an easy concept. Not too hard, but not that easy.
To OP: stop overthinking it! Use articles incorrectly, or don't use them at all but the goal here is to eventually get them right. It doesn't require a conscious effort, you will just get better and better.
The word is "bottle".
If "one bottle, doesn't matter which one" makes sense in that case, use "a". Otherwise use "the", especially if it's the same thing you've pointed at earlier. Uncountable nouns often require no article.
>>57608812
It's pretty much the same problem as with any grammatical concept, there is some information that can be expressed with it, but you never had to, so it feels super unnatural to even say it. In Turkish, there is no word for "she". Even though a Turkish person has exactly the same information as you about someone's gender, it would take some conscious effort to stop referring to everyone as "he". Articles are probably much harder than "he/she" distinction.
>>57609759
I sometimes also accidentally referr a she as a he when I'm speaking without thinking too much. We also don't use articles but I still don't get why slavs don't know how to use them properly
T. Finn
>>57608812
It's not hard. It's just a thing you have to learn from scratch.
People will usually get what you're saying anyways from the context, don't be afraid to mess things up. We mess up our own grammar all the time anyways. Unless you're in a formal environment don't let it bother you.
Using them incorrectly is better than not using them at all. If you always skip them you'll never learn them
>>57610049
Agreed.
>>57609887
You don't know how to use them either
articles are fucking nonsense you just need to memorize for every word
>>57610203
Languages make no sense in general. Russian is worse.
>>57608057
My grandfather is Czechoslovak. He has been learning English since he was a boy, has been living in Australia for over sixty years, worked here for decades, speaks English well, and still mixes up articles; sometimes he even uses "the" before people's names (e.g., "the Tony Abbott"). It doesn't make him difficult to understand, but it is moderately entertaining. Without articles he would sound stupid; don't drop them.
>>57610465
It's genius.
>>57610603
>Czechoslovak
so Czech, Slovak, Moravian or gypsy?
I'm often confused which sentence I should choose when I declare to make new Japanese threads on /int/ .
>I will make a new thread
>I will make the new thread
>>57608057
I have the same problem, articles don't exist in Finnish, not even anything remotely resembling them. It doesn't help that native speakers sometimes seem to use them pretty inconsistently. Actually the whole concept of adding articles, prepositions and such in front of things is hard and alien for me, because we don't really do that in Finnish. I have to learn every sentence by heart, one by one, because I don't have a natural ability of reasoning them.
anglos don't care, gregzorzcz
I learned most of European language don't have the concept "article" for the first time.
The concept is made newly? or it is the old concept in European language but it remains only in English?
>>57611812
the first one
>>57612121
I heard that it came from the pre indo European language that was in Europe before, but I could be wrong.
>>57612216
tell me the reason
we cannot the different clearly so we often say such as >>57612175
btw he (the person who declare making a new thread) isn't me haha
>>57612121
English a
French le
Spanish la
Italian la
German ein
Norwegian en
What? Most European languages do have articles.
>>57612374
>>57612374
I'm pretty sure it's not a feature of the indo european language group, but you find it in western europe
>>57612344
To be honest it's just instinct. I don't know the rules of it but because it's the only language I've used all my life I know what sounds right. We never learned about articles in school. In this scenario the 2nd one would be acceptable too.
>>57612692
I think the difference between が and は is to in Japanese language what the difference between a and the is to in English
>>57608057
I have the same problem as Slovak living in Ireland.
>>57611812
Both are fine grammatically but the first sounds more natural
>>57613110
A very basic rule is that you use "a" for one member of a general group of things. For example, "a cat" for some individual cat. Further confused by "a" becoming "an" for words with vowels at the start, like for "an apple"
"The" usually refers to a specific thing, so "the cat" refers to a specific individual cat.
The concept of indefinite articles isn't completely lost in Slavic languages.
Here I'll show your in my own language.
>Živjela jednom jedna djevojčica. Djevojčica se zvala Ivana.
>There once lived a girl. The girl was called Ivana.
The counterpart to the indefinite articles is "jedna". It denotes the same meaning actually. In old english 'a' meant literally 'one' just like in Croatian (and I assume other Slavic languages). It denotes some unspecific girl, just one out of many more.
"The" is different. It now connects the girl called Ivana with the girl mentioned in the previous sentence. Since we know exactly which girl we are talking about we use 'the' to showcase this.
That's the way I understand it at least and I usually don't have any troubles with articles.
>>57613788
then why is "I will make a new thread" more natural for a native?
What the man who makes a thread is saying means "I will make a specific thread (that is a Japanese thread, that is certainly a specific thread) so I think "I will make the new thread" is more decent.
>>57614191
I think 'the' makes more sense in the following context
>guys we're near the bump limit we need a new thread
>it's ok I'll make the new thread
Then again I'm not a beady eyed anglo so who knows?
>>57614348
>beady eyed
>anglo
wot you on about m8
>>57614543
>he doesn't know about the eternal anglo meme
>>57608057
Articles are a ton of times easier than cases. For a good reason vulgar latin started to get rid of them.
>>57614543
yeah in my opinion anglo eyes are rather froggy not beady
>>57612374
a car = un coche
the car = el coche
>>57614348
pretty much this 2bh, croatia you're alright
>>57608057
We don't pay attention to it. Honestly, we ignore most of the rules of our language anyway. Native speakers speak terrible english and don't care about it.
It's all contextual, but if you miss a 'the', you'll mark yourself as a foreigner even if the accent didn't tip people off.
>>57615131
To what extent can you overlook the mistakes which non-natives make
for example I forgot to put the verb behind cannot in >>57612344
Can you overlook this?
>>57614631
How do you know that articles are easier if you never had to learn them?
