The translation activity has one or more specific purposes and whichever they

may be, the main aim of translation is to serve as a cross-cultural bilingual

communication vehicle among people. In the past few decades, this activity has
developed because of rising international trade, increased migration, globalization, the
recognition of linguistic minorities, and the expansion of the mass media and
technology. For this reason, the translator plays an important role as a bilingual or
multi-lingual cross-cultural transmitter of culture and truths by attempting to interpret
concepts and speech in a variety of texts as faithfully and accurately as possible. If
translating is a discourse operation interposing language and thought, we should
accept that in the art or skill of translating, translators are inexorably going to come
across assorted and numerous obstacles. Sometimes this obstacles may lead to
inadequate translations. The consequences of wrong translations can be catastrophic
and mistakes made in the performance of this activity can obviously be irreparable. It
is quite clear that a poor translation can not only lead to hilarity or to minor confusion,
but it can also be a matter of life and death. Hence the importance of training
translators, not only in the acquisition and command of languages and translation
strategies and procedures, but also in specific knowledge areas and, what is equally
important, in the grammatical field of both languages. Continuing instruction in
grammar makes translators aware how grammar functions and helps them control, and
use, writing in increasingly effective ways. Skillful use of grammar may be the single
most important means of controlling the process that makes communication through
translation possible. There are many thorns that can mortify the translator during the
process, whatever the nature of the text we face, and translators should be aware of
them. The first problem is related to reading and comprehension ability in the source
language. Once the translator has coped with this obstacle, the most frequent
translation difficulties are of a semantic, syntactic and cultural nature. Whatever the
difficulty in the translation process, procedures must aim at the essence of the
message and faithfulness to the meaning of the source language text being transferred
to the target language text. To a great extent, the quality of translation will depend on
the quality of the translator, i.e. on her/his knowledge, skills, training, cultural
background, expertise, and even mood! The main abilities a good translator may
posses are: knowledge of the subject, sensitivity to language (both mother tongue and
foreign language), competence to write the source and target languages clearly,
economically, resourcefully and grammatically. Translators must be aware of the
similarities and differences between the grammar of both languages. For example, the
rules of article usage can get complex somehow because of the contrasting differences
between English and Spanish, and this may damage the translation’s interpretation.
That is the reason why the aim of this paper is to deal with the uses of the indefinite
article in both English and Spanish, by establishing a contrastive analysis between the
two languages in order to avoid misuses of both languages, and therefore, prevent the
target language readers from obtaining an inadequate translation which may lead to
misinterpretation.

You are probably familiar with "a", which is one of the shortest words in the
English language and also one of the most commonly used. The Spanish equivalents
of "a", "un" (used before masculine nouns and noun phrases) and "una" (feminine),
are also quite commonly used. These words are known as singular indefinite articles.
In Spanish, these words can also exist in the plural form; "unos" and "unas" are
known as the plural indefinite articles. Although they do not have an exact English
equivalent, they are usually translated as "some". The following chart will illustrate
the Indefinite articles in both English and Spanish.

INDEFINITE ARTICLES

SPANISH ENGLISH
SINGULAR PLURAL SINGULAR PLURAL
MASC. UN / UNO UNOS
FEM. UNA UNAS
A / AN SOME

The most obvious contrasts between English and Spanish indefinite articles
are the different forms each may take: Spanish has a full set of number and gender
forms in agreement with the noun that follows. English has only two forms, (with a
phonologically determined variation.) The possible equivalence patterns are:

ENGLISH SPANISH
1. There is a man waiting for you. (a/an)
(un/una)
2. She bought some apples. (some)
3. He is a doctor. (a/an)
4. We had a test. (a/an)
5. He wrote it without a word processor. (a/an) Lo escribió sin procesador de textos.
6. The night has a thousand eyes. (a/an)
7. What a pity! (a/an)
8. I bought grapes. (zero article)
9. "... a cat and dog..."
10. There is one student in the room.
Hay un hombre esperándote.
Compró unas manzanas. (unos/unas)
Es médico. (zero article)
Tuvimos examen. (zero article)
(zero article)
La noche tiene mil ojos. (zero article)
Qué pena! (zero article)
Compré uvas. (zero article)
"... un gato y un perro..."
Hay un estudiante en el aula. (un/una)

Again, Spanish has number and gender forms and a special shortened form of
“uno” that appears before nouns. The English forms show a distinction for number,
and a variation in form determined by whether a consonant or vowel follows. There is
no neuter form for indefinite articles in Spanish. There is no need for one; there is no
indefinite reference to nominalize concepts or to an aggregate of circumstances. I will
now analyze the possible equivalence patterns.

To start with, the indefinite article “a/an” is translated as “un/una” taking into
account the gender and number of the noun it is modifying. For example, “I need a
chair”, “Necesito una silla”, “They live in a flat”, “Viven en un departmento”. But,
one area where Spanish is different is that its indefinite article can be used in the
plural. Again it has two forms: “unos/unas”. These words are usually translated as
"some"; for example, "Leo unos libros", "I am reading some books", “Unas treinta
personas”, “Some thirty persons”. If “unos” or “unas” is used before an item that
exists in the plural to refer to a single object (as "pants" or "glasses" in English), the
article can mean "one" or "one pair": “Necesito unas gafas de buceo“, “I need a pair
of diving goggles“. Generally speaking, whenever you use “un” or “una” in Spanish,
you need to use "a" or "an" to say the equivalent in English. But the reverse isn't true.
The appearance is that Spanish frequently "omits" the indefinite articles. I will now
analyze these cases.
 The indefinite article is used in English with unmodified nouns of jobs or
occupations as well as nationalities or any other kind of identification (rank, religion
and political affiliation), whereas in Spanish, there is no article needed in these cases.
This contrast occurs most frequently after a linking verb. For instance, “Es ama de
casa“, “She is a housewife”, “El Presidente Clinton es demócrata”, “President
Clinton is a Democrat”, “Soy sueco“, “I am a Swede”. In the popular song which
lyrics read: “Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán…” the translation would be: “I am not a
mariner, I am a captain…” That sentence indicates one of the differences between
Spanish and English. Whereas as English requires the word "a" before "mariner" and
"captain", Spanish does not require an equivalent word, which in this case would be
“un“. Say “no soy un marinero, soy un capitán“, and it would sound as awkward (and
improper) as one possible translation into English: "I am not one mariner, I am one
captain." So, when referring to a person's profession, the indefinite is not used in
Spanish, although it is used in English.

Another case in which the indefinite article is omitted when translating into
Spanish is after the preposition “con” (with) and “sin” (without): The indefinite article
often is not needed before objects of these two prepositions. An example of this case
is: “Lo escribió sin procesador de textos”, “He wrote it without a word processor“.
Moreover, there is no need for translating the indefinite article into Spanish when it is
used in exclamations; for instance, “What a pretty girl!”, “Qué linda chica!” and
before the words “ciento” (100), “mil” (1,000), “medio” (half), “cierto” (a certain)
and “otro” (other). For example, “cien libros”, “a hundred books”. Besides, there is a
similar contrast between English “a” and Spanish “zero article” where an English
count noun has a Spanish mass noun as its equivalent. For instance, “I have an
appointment with the doctor”, “Tengo cita con el doctor”.

The most likely mistake a translator can make is to insert “un/una” in similar
Spanish sentences. This is difficult to correct because all the Spanish phrases
mentioned above can not take the indefinite article and the meaning when translating
may undergo a subtle change.

There is one case where the indefinite article in English cannot be used where
it is needed in Spanish: in a series of two or more words joined by "and" (y in
Spanish). In English we might say "... a cat and dog..."," but in Spanish it must be "...
un gato y un perro...". Without the second “un“, the phrase would be understood as
referring to one creature, a cross between a cat and dog. Note the distinction in these
sentences: “Conozco a un artista y un dentista” means "I know an artist and I know a
dentist", while “Conozco a un artista y dentista” means "I know a dentist who is also
an artist." On the other hand, in many other cases, the effect of leaving out the article
in Spanish is approximately the same as it would be in English. For example,
“Compré uvas“, “I bought grapes“, “Compré unas uvas“, “I bough some grapes“.

Finally, another difference between English and Spanish which leads to

transfer problems is the fact that Spanish “uno” is equivalent not only to English “a”
but also to the number form “one”. Spanish does not distinguish an indefinite article
from a numeral beyond the pattern of occurrence before the noun (article or numeral)
and after the noun (numeral only). For example, “…un libro…”, “…one book…” or
“…a book…”. There is a relationship between “a” and “one” in English, however,
which can be shown by their behavior when the noun head is deleted: “He has a
book.” = “He has one.” If a translator does not take this into account, he/she will
bring about inadequate translations and therefore misinterpretations.

To conclude, in the attempt to transfer meaning from one language (Source

Language) to another (Target Language) by means of the universally known practice
of translation, the translator faces a great number of linguistic, stylistic, grammatical
and even cultural problems. Even the most linguistically competent translator often
has a personal language history which never really requires him or her to pay special
attention to any particular grammatical feature, either of the native language or of the
target one. The translator should be aware also of the contrastive differences between
both languages. I have researched into indefinite articles because they are the most
common and frequently used pieces of language in both English and Spanish. The
article system is extremely complicated and most native speakers cannot tell you why
they use the articles they do. There are slight differences between these various forms,
which indicate different meanings. For translators the slight differences can be very
difficult to understand and that makes articles difficult to translate. The difficulty with
articles lies in the incompatibility of English and Spanish rules of grammar. That is
the reason why, some exposure to contrastive analysis allows the translator to see the
value of analysis in general, and raise his or her awareness of the many differences
and similarities between the two languages. One weakness of this paper is that it does
not cover all the possible features of articles that a translator may encounter.
However, I devoted more space and time to cover those special cases that are
important enough to create a few problems for the translator and tried to solve them
so as not to create differences in semantic meaning when translating.

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