Articles
A, an, the in English but quite a bit more complicated in Spanish, French, and Italian
Articles are an often forgotten and unappreciated part of speech. They’re not solid like nouns, descriptive like adjectives, or active like verbs - they simply show up in front of nouns to provide a bit of information about them. And yet, articles in our Romance languages can be kind of complicated, especially when compared to English.
Here’s the receipt with some water and a coffee.
In English and Spanish, two of the bolded words are articles, while in French and Italian, all three are. Let’s take a look!
🎬 English has two kinds of articles: definite (the) and indefinite (a, an). “Some” is an adjective.
🇪🇸 Spanish
Spanish is similar to English in that it has two types of articles. But unlike English, each type has four forms to agree with the noun in gender and number.
Artículos definidos: el, la, los, las
Artículos indefinidos: un, una, unos, unas
As for “some,” Spanish uses the quantifier un poco de.
Aquí tienes el recibo con un poco de agua y un café.
🇫🇷 French
French articles are slightly easier in one respect: they don’t have different plural forms for masculine and feminine. But they’re more complicated because they can have a different form in front of vowels, and because there’s a third type.
Articles définis: le, la, l’, les
Articles indéfinis: un, une, des
Articles partitifs: du, de la, de l’, des
Voici le ticket de caisse, avec de l’eau et un café.
🇮🇹 Italian
Italian has the largest number of articles, with different forms to agree with the gender and number of the noun as well as a few extras depending on the first letter of the noun - a total of 7 forms per type.
Articoli definiti: il, lo, l’, la, i, gli, le
Articoli indefiniti: un, uno, una, un’, dei, degli, delle
Articoli partitivi: del, dello, dell’, della, dei, degli, delle
Ecco lo scontrino con dell’acqua e un caffè.
Know any other language lovers who would enjoy diving into the similarities and differences between these three languages?