A funny quirk of English I never noticed until I started learning Spanish:
In Spanish, to say for example, "he is a doctor," you would say "él es médico." Which more literally translates to "he is doctor," which feels unintuitive coming from English. Spanish DOES have an equivalent for "a" - "un/una", so the natural thing for an English speaker to say would be "él es UN médico", but I understand that to be awkward/unnatural.
But then I realized, when you say the same sentence in plural - "they are doctors" - you don't have an article. You don't say "they are some doctors" (I had to Google, apparently "some" isn't an article anyway?)
So Spanish ends up more consistent - Singular: "Él es médico." Plural: "Ellos son medicos."
Unlike English - Singular: "He is a doctor." Plural: "They are doctors."
To expand a bit, it's a perfectly valid use, but most people will forgo having an extra word that has no role in the phrase.
"Il est médecin" and "Il est un médecin" are perfectly equivalent so people will choose the shorter.
The "un" comes back when using the noun as an adjective isn't possible anymore, e.g. by adding an actual adjective "Il est un bon médecin"
hbn · · focus · HN ↗
In Spanish, to say for example, "he is a doctor," you would say "él es médico." Which more literally translates to "he is doctor," which feels unintuitive coming from English. Spanish DOES have an equivalent for "a" - "un/una", so the natural thing for an English speaker to say would be "él es UN médico", but I understand that to be awkward/unnatural.
But then I realized, when you say the same sentence in plural - "they are doctors" - you don't have an article. You don't say "they are some doctors" (I had to Google, apparently "some" isn't an article anyway?)
So Spanish ends up more consistent - Singular: "Él es médico." Plural: "Ellos son medicos."
Unlike English - Singular: "He is a doctor." Plural: "They are doctors."
Onavo · · focus · HN ↗
TacticalCoder · · focus · HN ↗
> Il est un médecin?
Nope that's bogus french: you say "il est médecin". But you can say: "c'est un médecin".
makeitdouble · · focus · HN ↗
To expand a bit, it's a perfectly valid use, but most people will forgo having an extra word that has no role in the phrase.
"Il est médecin" and "Il est un médecin" are perfectly equivalent so people will choose the shorter.
The "un" comes back when using the noun as an adjective isn't possible anymore, e.g. by adding an actual adjective "Il est un bon médecin"