"Twins have the same parents."
Translation:Ĝemeloj havas la samajn gepatrojn.
16 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
15
I don't know exactly, but probably for the same reason it's necessary in English. "Twins have same parents" doesn't sound right to me. I suspect it has something to do with la/the being a definite article, meaning that it defines a specific thing. http://www.edufind.com/english-grammar/definite-article/
I am reading this - two years after you posted it!
I would answer something like this. Can we talk about having "a same parent"? Can we talk about having "some same parents"? We say "the same parents because it's a definite set of parents. The parents of one are the parents of the other. Notice that I said the parents in both cases in the last sentence.
It's similar in Esperanto.
I do think there are cases where we wouldn't say "la sama" in Esperanto even where we would say "the same" in English. Off the top of my head, I would say the rule is that we don't use "la" when using the adverb to describe things that are the same.
- Mi havas la saman ideon - it's one idea, the idea.
- Mia ideo estas sama kiel la via. There are two ideas and they are the same.
579
There's one hit in the tekstaro.com for geĝemeloj. But it's for two pairs of identical twins.