In my proofreading, 30% of the corrections I make are adding “the”, and 10% are taking it away. Most Polish people struggle with the definite article, but you can probably fix more of your mistakes by understanding how to use it correctly than by learning any other thing. So when do we use it?
When there is only one of something
For example, the internet. This is why we use the with superlatives and rankings. Warsaw is the biggest city in Poland and Krakow is the second because by definition there can only be one of each. We say a lie but the truth because there are many possible falsehoods, such as that the sky is green or red, but only one thing can be true, which is that it is the colour of smog.
When there is only one in context
I lived in Serbia for a year (yes, really). That’s not specific because a bunch of different years could make sense. But if I add that I lived in the capital then I should use the definite article because although there are many capital cities in the world, it is obvious that the one I am talking about is Belgrade. We often give the context immediately after the thing itself, for example “Do you remember the meeting that we had last week?” or “While Deng Xiaoping was the de facto leader of China, his official title was the Honorary President of the National Bridge Club”.
When something has already been mentioned
You might use a the first time you mention something, but if you keep using it, it will sound like you keep introducing new ones rather than referring back to the same. If I say “On Wednesday, a student and I had a meeting. A student suggested I write this article.”, then it sounds like I am not talking about the same person. This can create a lot of confusion for a native speaker reading it.
The rules above don’t describe all usages of the definite article, but they do cover the most common ones and the situations in which I most often find it missing. If you would like to practice using it, a good exercise is to print out an old email that you sent and try to correct it by applying them.
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When I proofread emails or presentations for my Polish clients, I often see them telling their own clients what they will try to do, or what they would like to achieve. Typical examples would be something like “We want to get the best possible results” or “We aim to satisfy our partners”. You should not do this.
In the UK, we often contrast success with effort. When I was in high school, nearly every child got a prize at the end of the year. The ones who had done well got one for achievement, and the rest got one for effort. We even have sayings like that it doesn’t matter how successful you are as long as you try your hardest and that what is important isn’t whether you win or lose but how you play the game. This probably isn’t how your clients feel though. They would probably expect you to win.
So in English language culture, talking about what you try to do, implies that you think you may not manage. When you talk about what you hope to achieve, you aren’t trying to lower expectations and mitigate the loss of face your likely failure will cause by stressing how good your intentions were, but you kind of sound like you are. You’re not insecure about your work, so how can you avoid coming across like someone who posts a lot on social media about how proud of their personal growth they are?
Will-power
Don’t tell people what you want to achieve, tell them what you will. In the first example I gave at the start of this article, having said “We will get the best possible results” would have sent a much stronger message without accidentally implying some lack of confidence or possibility of failure on your part. In a lot of other cases, the phrase referring to your intentions can simply be omitted, such as in the second example where “We satisfy our partners” would be enough, aim to only adding doubt.
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