What gets me as a non-native speaker far more than "a vs an" is the "a vs the" conundrum. I still don't quite get when something needs to be "indefinite" and I've been speaking English for close to forty years. My native tongue lacks articles altogether and it's soo bloody hard I feel hopeless I'll ever master them fully.
I have the opposite problem. I speak a non-English language (poorly) that hasn't got 'a' or 'the' so I end up shoehorning other words into the sentence to take their place, such as 'one [particular item]' for 'the' and 'some [item]' for 'a'. I likely sound like an idiot when I talk. Non native speakers of English have similar ticks.
But (in)definite articles aren't difficult, you're either talking about some member of a group or class of items without specifying which one (a), or you're talking about one particular example or instance that is being referenced in context (the).
I don't understand how languages can talk about things precisely without them. I guess they just use context, more or other words in their place, or structure sentences differently. English just feels convenient in this case, but obviously I am biased.
Even languages that have both indefinite and definite articles use them slightly differently, for example Spanish, German, English and Hungarian have them, but the rules of their use is somewhat different, though the main idea is similar.
It takes time to learn things like "at school" vs "at the school", "to school", "to the school", "I know English", not "I know the English", but "I know the English language" etc. etc. It's obviously easy when you speak it natively, but it just happens to be a certain way and could plausible be in another way too, as other languages show.
The funny thing is is that all the examples you gave are correct English.
[I learned it] "at school" - I learned it at school, I'm not specifying which school
[I learned it] "at the school" - I learned it at school, the one that was referenced
"I know the English" - I know the English people
"I know the English language" - I know the English language (specifically)
The point being that articles do a lot of work. They're not just decoration whereby there is some arbitrary correct form or rule. It's a matter of what you want to say.
But in the third and forth sentences 'English' is both a collective noun and the name of a language which is just a coincidence.
> [I learned it] "at school" - I learned it at school, I'm not specifying which school
> [I learned it] "at the school" - I learned it at school, the one that was referenced
That's not the distinction that the OP is making. If you say "I am at school", it means you are a student, you attend school. If you say "I am at THE school", it means you are physically at the school building, without specifying whether you are a student. Both of those options are different from saying "at a school." See also "prison", "work", "bed". Similar distinction (in UK English, not so much American English) with "in hospital" vs "in the hospital."
As was pointed out, "I go to the dentist every year" doesn't necessarily mean a particular dentist; it just means some dentist, but we use the definite article anyway, because I guess we consider all dentists interchangeable? We don't use definite articles even when we are referring to a specific thing in specific phrases, such as "I went to Florida by [the] car."
Then there's highly idiomatic use of articles with proper nouns. We say "Buckingham Palace" [no article] but "The Washington Monument" [definite article]. We talk about "The Rockies" [definite article] but "Mount Fuji" [no article]. "Germany" but "The United States." Sometimes we use the definite article when referring to to racial or ethnic groups, and sometimes we don't, and that choice can have complicated social implications ("The Blacks", anyone?).
In short, if a native English speaker tells you that article use is straightforward, then they simply have not considered all the cases.
> If you say "I am at school", it means you are a student, you attend school. If you say "I am at THE school", it means you are physically at the school building, without specifying whether you are a student. Both of those options are different from saying "at a school." See also "prison", "work", "bed". Similar distinction (in UK English, not so much American English) with "in hospital" vs "in the hospital."
Your description is incomplete. I agree that "I'm at school" carries at least a strong implication that you are a student at that school, but it also carries the denotation that the school is where you are currently physically located. If you want to specify that you are currently a student without claiming that you're currently on the premises, you would need to say "I'm in school", though that particular expression (a) doesn't specify which school you attend, and (b) can't be altered to provide that information (which is to say, you can't replace "school" with the name of a school). To get there, you need to change the verb; you can say "I attend Florida State", at which point the stative inflection on attend makes it clear that you aren't discussing your current physical location.
The hospital example is pretty much the same. Being "in the hospital" is analogous to being "in school", a fact about your current status rather than your current location. For your location you'd want to use "at", which doesn't have the same weird thing going on in "at the hospital" that it does in "at school".
> The hospital example is pretty much the same. Being "in the hospital" is analogous to being "in school",
No. To be "in hospital" or to go "to hospital" means that you are a patient. To be "in the hospital" describes only location.
> Your description is incomplete
Your analysis is fine, but does not contradict my comment and moreover is irrelevant to the present discussion, which pertains to the subtle use of articles in English.
> No. To be "in hospital" or to go "to hospital" means that you are a patient. To be "in the hospital" describes only location.
>>> in UK English, not so much American English
> you can recognize that usage in those phrases, rather than revealing some kind of subtle point about how the is used in nearly-identical contexts, is determined arbitrarily.
I wasn't aware that I was making a "subtle" point. I was joint showing that the use of articles in English is complex and hard-to-predict for non-native speakers, in contradiction to the claim (paraphrased) that "Just use the for things that are definite, duh!" Your point that article use varies between dialects of the same language strengthens my point, insofar as encountering inconsistent use makes learning the language even harder.
> is determined arbitrarily.
I don't know what you're trying to say here. Languages vary systematically over time. Just because two different dialectics, or two different languages, do things in different ways doesn't mean that those changes were arrived at arbitrarily.
abraxas · · focus · HN ↗
nutjob2 · · focus · HN ↗
But (in)definite articles aren't difficult, you're either talking about some member of a group or class of items without specifying which one (a), or you're talking about one particular example or instance that is being referenced in context (the).
I don't understand how languages can talk about things precisely without them. I guess they just use context, more or other words in their place, or structure sentences differently. English just feels convenient in this case, but obviously I am biased.
bonoboTP · · focus · HN ↗
It takes time to learn things like "at school" vs "at the school", "to school", "to the school", "I know English", not "I know the English", but "I know the English language" etc. etc. It's obviously easy when you speak it natively, but it just happens to be a certain way and could plausible be in another way too, as other languages show.
nutjob2 · · focus · HN ↗
[I learned it] "at school" - I learned it at school, I'm not specifying which school
[I learned it] "at the school" - I learned it at school, the one that was referenced
"I know the English" - I know the English people
"I know the English language" - I know the English language (specifically)
The point being that articles do a lot of work. They're not just decoration whereby there is some arbitrary correct form or rule. It's a matter of what you want to say.
But in the third and forth sentences 'English' is both a collective noun and the name of a language which is just a coincidence.
hackyhacky · · focus · HN ↗
> [I learned it] "at the school" - I learned it at school, the one that was referenced
That's not the distinction that the OP is making. If you say "I am at school", it means you are a student, you attend school. If you say "I am at THE school", it means you are physically at the school building, without specifying whether you are a student. Both of those options are different from saying "at a school." See also "prison", "work", "bed". Similar distinction (in UK English, not so much American English) with "in hospital" vs "in the hospital."
As was pointed out, "I go to the dentist every year" doesn't necessarily mean a particular dentist; it just means some dentist, but we use the definite article anyway, because I guess we consider all dentists interchangeable? We don't use definite articles even when we are referring to a specific thing in specific phrases, such as "I went to Florida by [the] car."
Then there's highly idiomatic use of articles with proper nouns. We say "Buckingham Palace" [no article] but "The Washington Monument" [definite article]. We talk about "The Rockies" [definite article] but "Mount Fuji" [no article]. "Germany" but "The United States." Sometimes we use the definite article when referring to to racial or ethnic groups, and sometimes we don't, and that choice can have complicated social implications ("The Blacks", anyone?).
In short, if a native English speaker tells you that article use is straightforward, then they simply have not considered all the cases.
thaumasiotes · · focus · HN ↗
Your description is incomplete. I agree that "I'm at school" carries at least a strong implication that you are a student at that school, but it also carries the denotation that the school is where you are currently physically located. If you want to specify that you are currently a student without claiming that you're currently on the premises, you would need to say "I'm in school", though that particular expression (a) doesn't specify which school you attend, and (b) can't be altered to provide that information (which is to say, you can't replace "school" with the name of a school). To get there, you need to change the verb; you can say "I attend Florida State", at which point the stative inflection on attend makes it clear that you aren't discussing your current physical location.
The hospital example is pretty much the same. Being "in the hospital" is analogous to being "in school", a fact about your current status rather than your current location. For your location you'd want to use "at", which doesn't have the same weird thing going on in "at the hospital" that it does in "at school".
hackyhacky · · focus · HN ↗
No. To be "in hospital" or to go "to hospital" means that you are a patient. To be "in the hospital" describes only location.
> Your description is incomplete
Your analysis is fine, but does not contradict my comment and moreover is irrelevant to the present discussion, which pertains to the subtle use of articles in English.
thaumasiotes · · focus · HN ↗
>>> in UK English, not so much American English
hackyhacky · · focus · HN ↗
I wasn't aware that I was making a "subtle" point. I was joint showing that the use of articles in English is complex and hard-to-predict for non-native speakers, in contradiction to the claim (paraphrased) that "Just use the for things that are definite, duh!" Your point that article use varies between dialects of the same language strengthens my point, insofar as encountering inconsistent use makes learning the language even harder.
> is determined arbitrarily.
I don't know what you're trying to say here. Languages vary systematically over time. Just because two different dialectics, or two different languages, do things in different ways doesn't mean that those changes were arrived at arbitrarily.