When do you add/remove Articles?

Question

If you say "Does he have a girlfriend?", it's "¿Tiene novia?" (no una)

And if you say "I want some milk, please", it's "Quiero leche por favor" (no algún)

But when you say, "I want a cup of tea, please" it's "Quiero una taza de té, por favor"

Why are articles included sometimes, and other times not used?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Julian is right. Trying to formulate rules for every article inclusion / exclusion and their variations between Spanish and English will drive you to the point of insanity. That said I think I can explain your examples here:

"Does he have a girlfriend?" - "¿Tiene novia?" (no una)

After "tener" and several other verbs where the direct object generally will be one in number no article is required. To make this comparable to English you can think of the indefinite article as the number one. If we were to say "Does he have one girlfriend?" in English it would be a different question from "Does he have a girlfriend?" The former would be concerned with the number of girlfriends and the same would be true if "una" were included in Spanish.

This rule carries over to things like professions. In Spanish "Soy autor" = "I am an author." There is no need for "Soy un autor" because it doesn't need to be counted. Likewise in English we would not say "I am one author."

It's worth noting that this changes when the object is modified. When something is modified it becomes specific and now requires the article in Spanish: "¿Tiene una novia bonita?" At a stretch this can be made comparable to English using the "one" rule from above, if you think of sentences like "I am one cool dude" or "I am one smart cookie." It's the modified noun that makes these sentences possible. If we were to say "I am one dude" we would be reverting back to the counting sense and this would hold a different sentiment. Likewise while I would not say "I am one author" I could say "I am one good author" - "Soy un autor bueno."

"I want some milk, please" - "Quiero leche por favor" (no algún)

"I want a cup of tea, please" - "Quiero una taza de té, por favor"

With these two sentences the first refers to a non-countable noun, the second a countable. As such you can again think of "una" as "one." How many cups of tea do you want? The number is important, so the article is included. We revert to "a" in English but we could just as easily say "I want one cup of tea."

In the non-countable noun sentence "some" isn't an article, it's a quantifier representing an undetermined amount. We sometimes use "some" even when this quantity is not particularly important, because by convention including "some" makes the statement softer and more polite. I don't think the same convention necessarily exists in Spanish. If, however, the quantity were an important factor then I'm fairly sure a quantifier would be included in Spanish just as it would be in English.

Very nice insight. :) - bosquederoble, Feb 22, 2017

Thanks Bosque. It's amazing how long it took to transfer that concept from my brain into words that hopefully make sense :) - jellonz, Feb 22, 2017

That is clearly an answer that took some time to craft, i write some long ones sometimes and I know how long it takes me, and that is usually with at least a couple of typos and a grammatical error. :D - bosquederoble, Feb 22, 2017

Only the odd one Bosque :) And given the quality of your responses the odd typo is no concern at all. - jellonz, Feb 22, 2017

This really helps! Thanks jellonz - Vaderluke, Feb 23, 2017

Answer 2

Why in English do you say "I want a cup of tea" and "I want tea"? Why in British English do you say "He´s in hospital" and in American English "He´s in the hospital"? The use of articles is many times just how the language is used.

Great explanation. :) - rac1, Feb 22, 2017

Answer 3

You ask two questions: When do we use or omit articles, and why? JuliianChivi has answered the why. For the when, try this article.