"While speakers of these languages (French, Spanish and Italian) face a simpler task in acquiring this aspect of English, they conversely must learn when not to use the definite article:
I always enjoy the rap music."
I think this rings true for speakers of Romance languages and for other languages as well. My parents, being born and raised in Korea and then moving to the US, tend to use the definite article when not needed. When practicing her English, my mom will sometimes say things like, "there's the food on the table." Although it is not needed, she tends to slip in definite articles throughout her speaking. Another aspect of English that is difficult for Korean speakers is the fact that English contains the indefinite articles a/an. In Korean, there are no indefinite articles and so for someone who is a native Korean speaker to learn English and then to acquire the use of English articles, is definitely a struggle. For those learning to speak English, I find that they have the most trouble with the "simpler" things, such as when to use the/a/an or how to switch from the past to the present tense. By having them practice speaking as well as writing, English L2 learners will be able to better understand the usage of the different types of articles and tenses in English. However, if we were just to have them only write, only read or only speak, they would not be able to fully grasp the different grammatical concepts of English.
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