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."
You should not look at superficial similarities between languages, but at logic.
To the question: "What is he?", the answer can be "He is married, tall, doctor in medicine".
On another point of view, "He is a doctor" = "one in the set of the doctors". (But which one of the crowd there? The tall one is the doctor.)
"He is doctor in medicine": identity; "He is a doctor": aside property.
With different expressions, you are not expressing the same thing, but different ideas (some of them more preponderant in use in a territory).
Similarities between languages is a much more intuitive approach for non-English speakers. This comment just explains an English idiom in terms of English idioms.
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."
mdp2021 · · focus · HN ↗
To the question: "What is he?", the answer can be "He is married, tall, doctor in medicine".
On another point of view, "He is a doctor" = "one in the set of the doctors". (But which one of the crowd there? The tall one is the doctor.)
"He is doctor in medicine": identity; "He is a doctor": aside property.
With different expressions, you are not expressing the same thing, but different ideas (some of them more preponderant in use in a territory).
parasti · · focus · HN ↗
mdp2021 · · focus · HN ↗
If they are substantial instead of superficial.
> This comment just explains ... idiom in terms of
the logic behind it. Which is common to many languages.