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."
"He is president" is different than "he is a president" (one among many) or "he is the president" (the one specific).
But it would have to be within the context of titles
With the specific case, the "the" could be dropped - "who is in running this rpg?" points "he is gamesmaster" which means "he is the gamesmaster".
Probably because it's a role, similar to the title?
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."
thinkingemote · · focus · HN ↗
He is President.
He is Doctor. (Dr.)
"He is president" is different than "he is a president" (one among many) or "he is the president" (the one specific).
But it would have to be within the context of titles
With the specific case, the "the" could be dropped - "who is in running this rpg?" points "he is gamesmaster" which means "he is the gamesmaster".
Probably because it's a role, similar to the title?
mr_toad · · focus · HN ↗
“He is doctor” sounds wrong because there’s rarely just one doctor.