“The” and “A”
I am sometimes asked to proofread papers in english written by folks in my laboratory. Today was no different. I actually enjoy doing this kind of work, but that is not what I want to talk about.
Today, while proof-reading another paper, it came to me that one of the mistakes I see most often is the incorrect usage of “a/an” and “the”. There are people with varying degrees of proficiency in english in my lab, but regardless of that, this is the most common mistake (at least the one I remember seeing most).
Also, it seems to me that more often than not, the problem is an extra “the”, where none was needed, or a “the” instead of an “a/an”. I don’t usually see a lacking “the” (they do exist, however).
I wonder why.
May 8th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
I think the confusion starts from the point that there’re no such articles in Japanese. I can imagine the reason for mistaking “a/an” for “the” if you’re not used to that… and we usually see more “the” than “a/an” around, right?
But why using it when is not needed happens more than not using it when you should is beyond me…
May 9th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Well, that the confusion is related to the fact that there is no such articles in Japanese is a give, I think. But even then, that does not explains much, because there are many ways these articles can be misused, yet the way that I see them misused around here seems pretty consistent.