posted in Asklemmy
Can somebody please explain why nouns like "the Devil", "the Pope", "the Holy Spirit" need the word "the"?
Aren’t they all proper nouns and therefore supposed to not need the definite article?
In Portuguese you put the equivalent of 'the" in front of people’s names. (A Michelle or O Robert)
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!
Not when you are a monolingual American living in Portugal trying to learn Portuguese. Lol
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.