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In spanish you also have to use a/an: Es un perro (its a dog) Saying "es perro" makes no sense. The problem is that you are mixing two different constructs,

by soyyo 13d ago

In spanish you also have to use a/an: Es un perro (its a dog) Saying "es perro" makes no sense. The problem is that you are mixing two different constructs, if you are refering to the whole thing you have to say un/una, if you are describing a property of something you don't use it. Es un perro, es macho. (It's a dog, is male) If you are talking about doctor being a property of someone,like his profession, you say "es médico" but if you are refering to the doctor as an entity and not a property of someone you have to use "a": Es un médico muy famoso (He is a very famous doctor). "Es médico muy famoso" again makes no sense.

alpinisme 13d ago
A good parallel in English is actually “going to (or being at) school.” While you can say you’re at “the” school or “a school”, they mean different things than just being at school. Ditto for UK “to hospital.” (Cf. to university, to college, to city hall, in government) Notably these are not the norm in English, but they do illustrate the pattern.
Al-Khwarizmi 13d ago
But he is totally right Spanish is more consistent in that respect, because it has a plural article. You can say "son unos perros" as well when you put that sentence in plural. Of course, that doesn't say anything about the languages in general, there are also things where Spanish is less consistent. E.g. why do we say "la película es buena" but "el día está bueno"? I'm a native Spanish speaker and when asked by foreigners about a rule that would explain that, I've never been able to come up with one. I'm learning Chinese and my feeling is that it's more consistent than both Spanish and English, things actually tend to make a lot of sense in Chinese. A pity that between the tones and the characters, it's much harder to learn than either of them.
- shmeeed 12d ago
  >why do we say "la película es buena" but "el día está bueno"? I don't know if I'm quite qualified to lecture you on your mother tongue, but AFAIR that's because one is an unchangeable inherent quality (of the movie), and the other one is a temporary condition (of the weather). As a learner, I find Spanish/Castellano to be quite consistent, actually. It's normal that one's native language's quirks tend to be very difficult to explain, because you learned them intuitively. E.g. I was surprised to learn from conversations that a lot of Spanish speakers seem to have never heard what the subjuntivo is, and being told, couldn't explain for the life of them why they use it all the time.

by soyyo 13d ago

alpinisme 13d ago

A good parallel in English is actually “going to (or being at) school.” While you can say you’re at “the” school or “a school”, they mean different things than just being at school. Ditto for UK “to hospital.” (Cf. to university, to college, to city hall, in government) Notably these are not the norm in English, but they do illustrate the pattern.

Al-Khwarizmi 13d ago

But he is totally right Spanish is more consistent in that respect, because it has a plural article. You can say "son unos perros" as well when you put that sentence in plural. Of course, that doesn't say anything about the languages in general, there are also things where Spanish is less consistent. E.g. why do we say "la película es buena" but "el día está bueno"? I'm a native Spanish speaker and when asked by foreigners about a rule that would explain that, I've never been able to come up with one. I'm learning Chinese and my feeling is that it's more consistent than both Spanish and English, things actually tend to make a lot of sense in Chinese. A pity that between the tones and the characters, it's much harder to learn than either of them.

shmeeed 12d ago
>why do we say "la película es buena" but "el día está bueno"? I don't know if I'm quite qualified to lecture you on your mother tongue, but AFAIR that's because one is an unchangeable inherent quality (of the movie), and the other one is a temporary condition (of the weather). As a learner, I find Spanish/Castellano to be quite consistent, actually. It's normal that one's native language's quirks tend to be very difficult to explain, because you learned them intuitively. E.g. I was surprised to learn from conversations that a lot of Spanish speakers seem to have never heard what the subjuntivo is, and being told, couldn't explain for the life of them why they use it all the time.