this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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Aren't they all proper nouns and therefore supposed to not need the definite article?

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[โ€“] makr_alland@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

In some Catalan dialects you use a special determinate article just for people (en Robert, na Michelle), one for "common" things there could be many of (sa house, es car) and a third for things there's only one of (el Pope, la Reina).

Languages are fun!

[โ€“] davel@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Balearic Catalan has them all.

[โ€“] YaksDC@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not when you are a monolingual American living in Portugal trying to learn Portuguese. Lol

[โ€“] pmtriste@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Portuguese is pretty tough. I just completed my B2 level class and I still can barely understand more than 40% of what Portuguese people say to me, and that's coming from a background of also having taken other languages in American high school. I have since determined that what we learned probably wasn't very functional, and much was probably just wrong, but we only had to pass tests, not actually understand a native speaker.