Why there is an article (or whatever it is called) in Italian when talking for example "non countable things like language" ? I mean that I know that in English you could say correctly: "I speak Finnish, Swedish and English" and as you can see there isn't any "the" but in Italian, it is: " (io) parlo la Finlandese, lo(?) Svedese e l'Italiano

I'm not sure about those la or lo or even il but I know you could say: "L'Italiano" . It doesn't bother me at all and I could put it there, I'm just curious that do you have any "reason or grammar rule" about this because it helps me to understand your language when I compare it to for example English

Grazie molto!

Question

Why there is an article (or whatever it is called) in Italian when talking for example "non countable things like language" ? I mean that I know that in English you could say correctly: "I speak Finnish, Swedish and English" and as you can see there isn't any "the" but in Italian, it is: " (io) parlo la Finlandese, lo(?) Svedese e l'Italiano

I'm not sure about those la or lo or even il but I know you could say: "L'Italiano" . It doesn't bother me at all and I could put it there, I'm just curious that do you have any "reason or grammar rule" about this because it helps me to understand your language when I compare it to for example English

Grazie molto!

Petricore · Answer

The article accompanies the noun and serves to insert it into the speech. We need the article so that the sentence makes sense. If you don't put it, it feels like using verbs without conjugating them. There is this difference with english and we can't really explain why, the two languages just work differently. We use the article 99% of the time. It's what differentiates a noun from an adjective or an adverb. Just remember there are a few cases when we don't use it, or it's optional (see the picture)

Petricore · Answer

@Vadelmamuffini Interesting :) Also many asian languages don't have articles
By the way "grazie" is plural, so you can say "molte grazie" :)

@Vadelmamuffini Interesting :) Also many asian languages don't have articlesBy the way "grazie" is plural, so you can say "molte grazie" :)

@Vadelmamuffini Interesting :) Also many asian languages don't have articles
By the way "grazie" is plural, so you can say "molte grazie" :)