Thread: the floor

a window, a wall, a door, etc. But why ''the floor''?
Is it an uncountable noun? Can I never say ''a floor''?

How To Tile A Floor (Painting & Decorating)

Originally Posted by Lena.from.Russia

a window, a wall, a door, etc. But why ''the floor''?
Is it an uncountable noun? Can I never say ''a floor''?

A - You're putting in a new floor?
B - Yes we're putting in a floor.

Scott

Originally Posted by fortheether

A - You're putting in a new floor?
B - Yes we're putting in a floor.

Scott

I was told that when you are talking about something not for the first time you should use the definite article.
A- You're putting in a new floor?
B - Yes we're putting in ''the'' floor.
because we are talking about the definite floor. Or am I mistaken?

Originally Posted by Lena.from.Russia

I was told that when you are talking about something not for the first time you should use the definite article.
A- You're putting in a new floor?
B - Yes we're putting in ''the'' floor.
because we are talking about the definite floor. Or am I mistaken?

This dialogue does not sound very natural because the important information inquired about by A is "new". There was a floor before the one being currently put in. Nobody would say "we're putting in the floor" here because it makes it sound as if there hadn't been a floor there in the first place. On the other hand, A could enquire "What are you going to do next?" and B could reply "We are going to put the floor in next" - here you have a first mention with a definite article because a room only has one floor and the type of floor is not important.

To tell you the truth, I never noticed how damn difficult the correct usage of articles is before I met Russians trying to come to terms with the concept. No matter how hard I try to explain all the shades of meaning conveyed by the articles, I never seem to be able to define them fully and clearly. You have my sympathies.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

This dialogue does not sound very natural because the important information inquired about by A is "new". There was a floor before the one being currently put in. Nobody would say "we're putting in the floor" here because it makes it sound as if there hadn't been a floor there in the first place. On the other hand, A could enquire "What are you going to do next?" and B could reply "We are going to put the floor in next" - here you have a first mention with a definite article because a room only has one floor and the type of floor is not important.

To tell you the truth, I never noticed how damn difficult the correct usage of articles is before I met Russians trying to come to terms with the concept. No matter how hard I try to explain all the shades of meaning conveyed by the articles, I never seem to be able to define them fully and clearly. You have my sympathies.

Thanks Robin. It's really hard for Russian people to use these 'a'/'the' articles because we have no articles in Russian as I am sure you know. Yes, I thought that a room has only one floor and that's why the floor is used. But what if the room has also one window but we say 'a window'?

I just had a list of words - a window, a door, a plant, etc. and the floor was the only word that was used with the definite article. Maybe because we can say windows, plants, doors, etc. and I am not sure we can say floors in plural?

Floors in plural would usually refer to different levels in a house. 1st floor, 2nd floor etc. I suppose that a definite article was used because rooms tend to have just one floor. Probably the same would have occured with "ceiling".

The room has a window - this means that there is a single window in the room.
The room has windows - obviously more than one.
The room has windows facing towards the beach - more than one, and more than one facing towards the beach, but possibly others facing elsewhere.
The window in the room faces towards the beach - in this case you state that there is just one window, and it faces towards the beach.
A window in the room faces towards the beach - here we can be sure that there are more windows, but none of the others face towards the beach.

Not possible: An only window in the room faces towards the beach. You can't use "an" and "only" here at the same time. It's a contradiction: "An" implies more than one, and "only" puts the number at exactly one.
Not possible: The room has the window. You would expect some additional property to define this specific window as a reason for the article.

Спасибо, Robin!