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My Korean tutor said the same thing about “the”. I said “doesn't it just mean there is only one instance?" and he replied "the police". For the benefit of othe
by mjd 2y ago
My Korean tutor said the same thing about “the”. I said “doesn't it just mean there is only one instance?" and he replied "the police".
For the benefit of other folks wanting to follow up the "take off" thing: it's called a "phrasal verb".
- egeozcan 2y agoTurkish doesn't have article(s) and "the" is usually very confusing when you first start. But then I learned German too...
- MichaelZuo 2y agoHow does Turkish handle addressing something like ‘the police’ in sentence structure? (without using anything similar to ‘the’) e.g. ‘The police force has expanded recently in this city.’
- justsomehnguy 2y ago‘Police force has expanded recently in this city.’
- egeozcan 2y agoNothing. "Polis (police), son (latest) zamanlarda (times, at) bu (this) şehirde (city, within) faaliyetlerini (operations) arttırdı (increased)." If I'm talking about a specific police officer, then I'd use "o", which means he/she/it/that. O geldi -> he/she/it/that arrived. O polis geldi -> that police arrived. Ona polis geldi -> police arrived to him/her (his/her place). polis geldi -> the police (has) arrived. O bahsettiğin polis geldi -> The police officer you were talking about (has) arrived.
- justsomehnguy 2y agoAh, yes, many languages do not need to specifically distinguish between 'police' and 'police force'.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoHow do you differentiate between the abstract concept of police, the concept of police forces as an organizational unit, and the specific police force that exists within a specific city?
- egeozcan 2y agoIf I understood you correctly, you just name them. The default is the concept, and most of the time people do not feel the need to separate some specific police force, because it's apparent from the context. Some specific police force aren't likely to expand their operations in the city. On the other hand, I think I may also be failing to explain this correctly because we are already at the limits of my English :)
- MichaelZuo 2y agoThanks, but you don’t need to explain how if you’re unsure. If you can just write one example in Turkish, of each case, so three total, most readers can probably puzzle it out with enough time using translation tools.
- egeozcan 2y agoAbstract Concept of Police (e.g., law enforcement in general): > Polis, toplumun güvenliğini sağlamakla görevlidir. > (Police are responsible for maintaining public safety.) Police Force as an Organizational Unit: > Bu şehirdeki polis teşkilatı faaliyetlerini arttırdı. > (The police force in this city has expanded its operations.) Specific Police Force Within a Specific City: > İstanbul polisi son zamanlarda çok aktif. > (The Istanbul police have been very active lately.)
- jangliss 2y ago> Bu şehirdeki polis teşkilatı faaliyetlerini arttırdı. Interestingly the -ki suffix here was borrowed from Persian (another Indo-European language like English), and effectively highlights a unique instance - "the one which" - in a way that Turkish otherwise doesn't specifically do.
- tukantje 2y agoTurkish, in comparison to English, is a language that is less lexically dense. So in this instance; you don't really need to specify anything; but that also means a lot of sentences _get longer due to said lack of lexical density requiring more words to be used, for clarity's sake and / or heavier reliance on context_. Which follows the cultural lines quite well - Turkish culture is a _high context culture_ whereas English culture is not (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context_cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context_c...).
- MichaelZuo 2y agoThe high-context culture would seem to be an adaption to the lower lexical density, if that’s the case? e.g. to save on space, paper, writing effort, etc…, Turkish writers have to rely on the reader reading in-between the lines to a greater extent than a similar English writer would in a similar position. And after many generations of writers competing, it simply became the default norm.
- tukantje 2y agoHypothetically it could be; but it is anyone’s guess frankly. Most likely it is multi variate in the end; as it is quite a broad thing.
- anticensor 2y agoFive different "the"s, three different "of"s, two different "from"s, six different "a"s.
- 3eb7988a1663 2y agoI have an ESL colleague (who speaks fantastic English) and she has repeatedly asked me to spellcheck important documents because she is concerned she will "mess up the articles". After she said it, I realized the incredible subtlety in communication that can be expressed by the position/omission of key articles.
- Doxin 2y agoI've always been taught that "the" is for when there's a single obvious instance you're talking about. There are many policemen and women, but if I say "the police" there's only really one likely candidate which I could be talking about. "A man" is just some guy. If I say "The man" there's a specific guy I'm talking about and I expect you to know which one. Did you know dutch has two words for "the"? One is generally for big or important things and the other for small or unimportant things. I'm sure people trying to learn Dutch love figuring out which you use when.