My slavic friends also have the same problem. I think it's a particulary acute problem for learners of a language with articles coming from a language without.

My slavic friends also have the same problem. I think it's a particulary acute problem for learners of a language with articles coming from a language without. It was much easier for me, for example, to learn Russian, as a native english speaker. I agree with you that we could probably do without articles, but it's not as if polish and russian don't have any need for them. In Russian этот/эта/это etc. are often use as a semi "the".