Quote Originally Posted by ShakeyX View Post
Just came across the sentence; Яблоки - это вид фруктов. I understand it to mean Apples are a type of fruit however I then thought, isn't it possible to write the exact same sentence using;

Яблоки - вид фруктов
-or-
Яблоки вид фруктов
This is mainly a question of style rather than grammar, so I will leave it to native speakers. However, my general understanding is that leaving out the это or есть or [--] entirely is mainly done when the the subject is a pronoun, such as Он врач ("He is a doctor") or Это яблоки ("These are apples").

But if the subject is a noun, it's better to use the long dash (or double hyphen) in writing:
Этот мужчина -- врач ("This man is a doctor.)

Also, есть is particularly likely to be used if the subject and predicate are the same: A есть А ("A is A," if you were translating Atlas Shrugged into Russian, God help you), or Мальчик есть мальчик ("A boy is a boy", in the sense of "It's a boy's nature to act like a boy", which can also be expressed with Мальчик мальчиком, putting the predicate in the instrumental.)

Quote Originally Posted by ShakeyX View Post
On a side note: a lot of other languages tend to make a distinction between "a" and "the" such as a car means any car but the car means is used when a particular car is the subject, how do you make this distinction in Russian or is that purely left down to этот
This is a bit complicated, but one way to distinguish "a" from "the" (at least in some contexts) is by word-order, since new information is often placed at the end of a sentence in Russian, and by definition, "the" refers to something already mentioned, and hence "not new." For instance:

"I made a sandwich. Then I ate the sandwich." (or "Then I ate it.")
Я приготовил бутерброд. Потом я бутерброд съел. (or Потом я его съел.)

Related to this word-order issue -- since pronouns, by definition, also refer to a noun already mentioned and thus aren't new info, typically a pronoun-object doesn't go at the end of the sentence. Я спорил с Наташой ("I argued with Natasha"), but Я с ней спорил ("I argued with her").

P.S. Just as a cultural note, бутерброд almost invariably refers to an "open-face" sandwich. So one slice of хлеб with a slice of ветчина ("ham") on top of it is a бутерброд, but ham between two pieces of bread is a сандвич or сендвич or сэндвич.