"I do not have a teaspoon!"
Translation:Eu nu am linguriță!
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1211
Elsewhere I've learnt that the indef. article isn't needed for status (el este bărbat, ea este regizoare etc) but is used in other instances apart from when a spoon or teaspoon is involved (eg. băiatul mănâncă supa fără lingură). I think there's antipathy towards the rounded section of the cutlery tray.
My take is that this is more about learning a language than about treating a subject area. Apparently it is benificial to refresh a small quantity of older vocabulary within a new context. A similar argument holds for absurd/unusual combinations that might (according to N. Chomsky?) reinforce grammar perception.
Personally, I do not like too much discussion about the appropriateness of the sentences - but then again, social bonding is another feature beneficial to language learning :-) To conclude: It is probably a feature rather than a bug!
By the way, it just occured to me that bufnița might be a small bufnă (according to the Internet, a less common word for owl). So the small spoon taught me something about Romanian owls indeed!
There is no need for it. English and Romanian don't match under many aspects. This is one of them. In this context ”o linguriță” would mean ”one spoon”. So it will change the meaning.
- 133
Why is the indefinite article not required here? I have not seen it omitted before. I see no satisfactory grammatical explanations yet.
