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I want to ask a question about a preceding article before a noun.

I was reading the following sentence

La casa no era muy enorme, pero tenía unas habitaciones enormes

which I roughly translated to

The house wasn't very big, but it had big rooms.

I was confused however, with the use of 'unas'.

Couldn't we say

La casa no era muy enorme, pero tenía habitaciones enormes

without the definite article, or does the 'unas' signify some kind of relationship between 'casa' and 'habitaciones'?

1 Answer 1

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Unas habitaciones enormes vs Las habitaciones enormes.

Some big rooms vs The big rooms

When you use an indefinite article, the noun has no definite quantity. If you do not use an article at all, then the noun is just that, a lonely noun.

Example:

Puedo tener unas galletas

This indicates that you only want to have some of the cookies, not all of them.

Puedo tener galletas

This simply indicates that you want cookies, but there is no definite quantity. It's very generic and to-the-point.

Puedo tener las galletas

This indicates that you want all of the cookies, even without saying "all of the". It's equivalent to the phrase "pass the butter". You want the butter, not some butter.

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