Universidad técnica particular de loja la universidad Técnica Particular de Loja

articles was another indicator that writers found a little difficult to deal 
with. 
Generally, the omission or bad placement (to add where it is not 
needed) of definite and indefinite articles is due to the learners’ previous 
native language knowledge about the structure of articles.
When it comes to English, there are certain rules to follow in order 
to use one of the articles (attached in Annexe 1). 
In Spanish, the only “rule” to follow is to identify whether the 
noun preceeding the article is singular or plural. On the other hand, the 
use of “the” produces a positive interference since it is used for all kinds 
of nouns which is not valid in Spanish since the article depends upon 
the gender of the noun and whether it is singular or plural. Let us look 
at some examples found in our research:
- “So I told her to borrow me some roller skates”.
- “My mother told me: ‘Take any chairs to the beach’”.
In these two examples we can notice how the writers have 
confused the use of the words “some” and “any” with the Spanish words 
“unas/unos” since they know that “some” and “any” can be translated 
that way.
- “We went to soccer stadium to watch Barcelona against Emelec”.
- “We’re going to The Galapagos Islands the next year”.
- “The UFOs have a so advanced technology”.

---

58
- “The People are worried about rising crime”.
- “She took poison and put it into the apple”. 
These examples show us that the writers are not very aware of the 
rules when using definite or indefinite articles and that they have 
applied some Spanish structures to add or omit some articles 
inappropriately according to the Spanish translation of the sentence.
The following example is peculiar. 
- “I have an estrong kick when I play soccer”.
In this case, the writer has made a wrong choice at choosing the 
article. In this case, the problem is phonetic since “strong” is 
pronounced as “estrong” in Spanish, therefore the writer has written the 
word incorrectly producing the language interference when choosing the 
article preceding the adjective.
When a native speaker was asked about the way this indicator 
would change the meaning of the sentences; he said it is still 
understandable since the main sense of the idea was not deeply affected 
by the interference.