Articles "un" and "una" before clothing items
Doing my Rosetta Stone, I noticed sentences such as:
La niña lleva camiseta.
I don´t understand why there isn´t an "una" before "camiseta". Is there any guidance on this or somewhere on the internet I can go read about it. I tried to do an internet search (using keywords like "articles" and "items of clothing", etc..) but could not find anything.
4 Answers
Even if we say "camiseta azul" here it doesn´t use an article because "llevar " in this case means "to wear."
If we say "la niña lleva una camiseta" (with article) it indicates that she is carrying/taking a shirt somewhere, ie: La niña lleva una camiseta de regalo a la fiesta de cumpleaños de una amiga.
http://spanish.about.com/od/adjectives/a/indefinite.htm
You don't use it after llevar. Except for maybe if you're talking about a specific type of shirt, like, una camiseta azul or something. But don't quote me on that part.
Another guideline here is that Spanish often leaves of the indefinite article on things that someone would normally have only one of. Also, it happens more often with negative constructions.
La niña lleva camiseta. The girl is wearing (a) shirt. It would normally be just a shirt, not several, so the ´a´ isn´t really needed. (and yes, I know fashion can break that ´rule´)
No tengo coche. I don´t have (a) car. In most societies and for many people of average means, one tends to have just one car or one house, so again, the ´a´ can disappear.
I´m still getting a handle on it myself. Julian´s answer above is especially enlightening, as it´s a case where using, or not using, an indefinite article (a normally fairly powerless little word fragment) actually informs the sense of the verb and changes the meaning of the sentence. Great example Julian.
What's happening there is that the way the phrase is constructed it omits parts of the sentence.
La niña lleva (una) camiseta (puesta)
The girl wears/is wearing a shirt.
