# I found [a] hotel where we stayed a few years ago



## abda2405

I found [a] hotel where we stayed a few years ago. _<-----Topic added to post by moderator (Florentia52)----->_

Hi there friends, could that sentence work? Say if you were talking to a friend who had no idea what hotel you were talking about? Somehow I want to say the hotel, but a friend of mine is insisting that the sentence would work with that a as well. I am a person who won't calm down until he knows the truth, so help me please!


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## Kirill V.

Let us see what native speakers think, but to me the sentence can work with both articles... it depends on the context and the exact meaning.

1. You are telling a story about the past.
_Back then it was almost impossible to find a hotel. I found a hotel, where we stayed a few years ago (= _I found a hotel and we stayed there_)_

2. _I found the hotel where we we stayed a few years ago_ (= It was me who found the hotel...)

3. _Where was that hotel where we stayed a few years ago? Oh, here it is, I'*ve* found the hotel where we stayed a few years ago._


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## grassy

In my opinion only _the_ works here. You're talking about the specific hotel.


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## abda2405

You sir or miss kayve hit the nail over the head, if it's "I found a hotel where (meaning in that city or any place) we stayed. But not the hotel at which we stayed,  in that case, I feel it has to be the hotel right?


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## Kirill V.

Well, yes, it seems more likely in _I found a hotel (in the city) where we stayed_, but I see a possibility for _a_ even if we did stay in that very hotel 

_In the summer of 1960 I spent a marvelous week with Julie in Sochi. Back then it was almost impossible to find a hotel there during the high season. But I found a hotel, where we stayed, and we were nice and happy etc..._


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## abda2405

kayve said:


> Well, yes, it seems more likely in _I found a hotel (in the city) where we stayed_, but I see a possibility for _a_ even if we did stay in that very hotel
> 
> _In the summer of 1960 I spent a marvelous week with Julie in Sochi. Back then it was almost impossible to find a hotel there during the high season. But I found a hotel, where we stayed, and we were nice and happy etc..._


But wait, can you really stay in a city, I mean if you're staying in a city then it has to be a hotel you're staying in, or a friend's house hm.


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## Kirill V.

abda2405 said:


> But wait, can you really stay in a city, I mean if you're staying in a city then it has to be a hotel you're staying in, or a friend's house hm.


Sorry, I don't see your point. Which sentence do you have problems with?


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## abda2405

Oh wait, I misunderstood your first post, sorry for that. You were actually implying a succession of actions. You found a hotel and you stayed there. My bad. But I've got the Russian variant and it does not imply any succession...

So your first point in your first post would not work.


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## Loob

I'd say that both "a" and "the" are possible: it depends how many hotels you stayed at a few years ago.

Scenario 1 _You visited London in 2002 and stayed at four hotels.  You returned in 2012, and you were lucky: you managed to find one of those hotels again._
> I found a hotel where we stayed a few years ago. 

Scenario 2 _You visited London in 2002 and stayed at one hotel.  You returned in 2012, and you were lucky: you managed to find that hotel again._
> I found the hotel where we stayed a few years ago.


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## abda2405

Loob said:


> I'd say that both "a" and "the" are possible: it depends how many hotels you stayed at a few years ago.
> 
> Scenario 1 _You visited London in 2002 and stayed at four hotels.  You returned in 2012, and you were lucky: you managed to find one of those hotels again._
> > I found a hotel where we stayed a few years ago.
> 
> Scenario 2 _You visited London in 2002 and stayed at one hotel.  You returned in 2012, and you were lucky: you managed to find that hotel again._
> > I found the hotel where we stayed a few years ago.


Yeah, that's actually one of the things that came to my mind as well. But you'd rather say one of the hotels... And the a usage still makes little to no sense. But let's see what others will say.
Plus again the Russian sentence does not state that there were many hotels in which they stayed.


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## Loob

If you're looking for a translation of a Russian sentence, you need to post your query in the Russian forum, abda.


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## abda2405

Loob said:


> If you're looking for a translation of a Russian sentence, you need to post your query in the Russian forum, abda.


No, I'm a linguist myself. And I know how it should be translated, but my friend insists I should put a, while I'm confident there cannot be an indefinite article because the Russian sentence implies that that is THE hotel they were staying in a few years ago. My question is whether or not it would be possible to say a hotel,  because it does not make sense to me but it does to my friend so... How can it be a hotel, when it's specified,  it's the same hotel we were staying in a few years ago...


The reason I'm not posting this on the Russian forum is simply because there are not a lot of Russians who really know English grammar, so I cannot trust them, which however  does not mean I don't respect them.


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## Kirill V.

abda2405 said:


> You sir or miss kayve



If I were miss I guess I would have long been Mrs by now. Am I a "sir"? I see it unlikely I am ever granted that status. So I am neither one. Just call me "my friend"...

If it is _the_ hotel then it should be _the_ hotel  If the other person doesn't get it - well, you've done what you could... A good English formula in such situation is "let's agree to disagree"


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## abda2405

Loob said:


> You asked in post 1 whether both options were possible. I gave you my answer.  If you're now adding limitations to the context, then over to you.


My bad, should have clarified more,  it's hard to do in forums you know, easier when you're having a conversation where you can discuss every single possibility with every subtle nuance.


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## boozer

I agree with Loob and her analysis in post 9. Both articles, the definite and indefinite, produce meaningful, grammatical sentences...


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## abda2405

boozer said:


> I agree with Loob and her analysis in post 9. Both articles, the definite and indefinite, produce meaningful, grammatical sentences...


While I don't quite agree with her first point, I had clarified above that the Russian sentence which is given as the key in my book does not imply that there were several hotels,  and it also does not imply any succession of actions.


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## Loob

Right, let's have one more try.

Back to Scenario 2: _You visited London in 2002 and stayed at one hotel. You returned in 2012, and you were lucky: you managed to find that hotel again._

Now you're having a conversation with your friend.  Your friend asks "Where did you stay?"
Do you answer:
(a) I found the hotel where we stayed a few years ago.
or
(b) I found a hotel where we stayed a few years ago.
?

I'd say that both (a) and (b) are possible.  (a) would highlight the fact it was a particular hotel; (b) would suggest "some hotel we happened to have stayed at before"


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## RedwoodGrove

However, the normal or default supposition is "the". _I found the hotel where we stayed a few years ago. _Presumably you know which hotel you are talking about.


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## abda2405

Loob said:


> Right, let's have one more try.
> 
> Back to Scenario 2: _You visited London in 2002 and stayed at one hotel. You returned in 2012, and you were lucky: you managed to find that hotel again._
> 
> Now you're having a conversation with your friend.  Your friends asks "Where did you stay?"
> Do you answer:
> (a) I found the hotel where we stayed a few years ago.
> or
> (b) I found a hotel where we stayed a few years ago.
> ?
> 
> I'd say that both (a) and (b) are possible.  (a) would highlight the fact it was a particular hotel; (b) would suggest "some hotel we happened to have stayed at before"



I found some hotel where we stayed before. Makes no sense does it? You cannot refer to the hotel where you have already stayed, as a hotel, because since you've had that experience the hotel is now a specific hotel, it's that hotel.


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## boozer

kayve said:


> I see it unlikely I am ever granted that status.


Who knows, you may be knighted one day. 



abda2405 said:


> While I don't quite agree with her first point, I had clarified above that the Russian sentence which is given as the key in my book does not imply that there were several hotels,  and it also does not imply any succession of actions.


I spent 10 years studying Russian early in my life. (Well, not continuously of course, I slept every now and then  ) While my Russian is far from perfect, I can imagine what the sentence sounds like in Russian and I know Russian is devoid of articles, which obfuscates things at times.

But all of this does not matter - we are discussing the English versions and their possible meanings.


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## abda2405

boozer said:


> Who knows, you may be knighted one day.
> 
> 
> I spent 10 years studying Russian early in my life. (Well, not continuously of course, I slept every now and then  ) While my Russian is far from perfect, I can imagine what the sentence sounds like in Russian and I know Russian is devoid of articles, which obfuscates things at times.
> 
> But all of this does not matter - we are discussing the English versions and their possible meanings.



Thanks for the contribution anyway.


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## Loob

abda2405 said:


> I found some hotel where we stayed before. Makes no sense does it? You cannot refer to the hotel where you have already stayed, as a hotel, because since you've had that experience the hotel is now a specific hotel, it's that hotel.


Would you be less disconcerted by "I stayed in a hotel I knew"?  That has the same flavour.


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## RedwoodGrove

Loob said:


> Scenario 1 _You visited London in 2002 and stayed at four hotels. You returned in 2012, and you were lucky: you managed to find *one of those hotels* again._
> > I found a hotel where we stayed a few years ago.



Loob: Note that in your natural speech you say "one of those hotels" which is what I would find natural to say.

_I found one of the hotels where we stayed years ago._


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## Kirill V.

I think I am starting to see Loob's point in #17...
- _Where did you stay?
- Well, I found a hotel, you know, the one where we stayed a few years ago._

I still tend to say _the_ shifting it further (_the one_). But Loob is a native speaker, so maybe colloquially one can omit the one.


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## abda2405

Loob said:


> Would you be less disconcerted by "I stayed in a hotel I knew"?  That has the same flavour.


It's ok to say a hotel that I know because there could be a lot of other hotels that you might know of. But there's one hotel in which you stayed(according to the original Russian sentence I have)   and that hotel is the hotel if you're saying you have found it.


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## RedwoodGrove

Look, 99 times out of 100 you will use "the".


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## Loob

kayve said:


> I think I am starting to see Loob's point in #17...
> - _Where did you stay?
> - Well, I found a hotel, you know, the one where we stayed a few years ago._
> 
> I still tend to say _the_ shifting it further (_the one_). But Loob is a native speaker, so maybe colloquially one can omit the one.


Nicely put, kayve.  You could change that to a version without "the":  _Well, I found a hotel - one where we stayed a few years ago._


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## abda2405

RedwoodGrove said:


> Look, 99 times out of 100 you will use "the".


I need to know what that 1 time  is.

I'm just saying that even if you happened to have stayed at a hotel, when you say you've found it(assuming that you found it now, but you stayed at the hotel a long time ago, and you're saying hey I found it!! It's that hotel) , you mean you've found that one hotel in which you stayed, not one of the thousands there might be!


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## RedwoodGrove

Loob and others have done a very good job explicating those times when you would use "a" instead of "the". But you should notice how far it is you have to write around the normal circumstance in order to justify the use of "a".


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## VicNicSor

abda2405 said:


> I found some hotel where we stayed before. Makes no sense does it? You cannot refer to the hotel where you have already stayed, as a hotel, because since you've had that experience the hotel is now a specific hotel, it's that hotel.


How about "I have *an *interesting book about Japan that I bought at a fair last week". The same usage.


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## abda2405

RedwoodGrove said:


> Loob and others have done a very good job explicating those times when you would use "a" instead of "the". But you should notice how far it is you have to write around the normal circumstance in order to justify the use of "a".


But what they have said still makes little sense, I mean why would you say I found a hotel where I stayed,  meaning one of the hotels where I stayed but that's not even the point because the original text negates it.


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## abda2405

VicNicSor said:


> How about "I have *an *interesting book about Japan that I bought at a fair last week". The same usage.


Not quite, first of all that book is not the only interesting book about Japan is it? You could say the interesting book if it was that interesting book you were talking about with your friend. Plus my sentence does not say I found a [adjective] hotel. In that case it would make perfect sense. Although in that case I'd still say the. Since it's the good, beautiful,  big, or whatever hotel where we stayed.


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## VicNicSor

abda2405 said:


> first of all that book is not the only interesting book about Japan is it?


It is the only book about Japan you have and have ever bought. As well as the only hotel you stayed at in 2002 in Loob's example (b) in#17.


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## Loob

abda2405 said:


> But what they have said still makes little sense, I mean why would you say I found a hotel where I stayed,  meaning one of the hotels where I stayed but that's not even the point because the original text negates it.


That's where you're going astray, abda: _a hotel where I stayed _can mean _one of the hotels where I stayed_  - but doesn't necessarily.

I'm bowing out now, in the hope that someone can explain this better than I can


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## abda2405

VicNicSor said:


> How about "I have *an *interesting book about Japan that I bought at a fair last week". The same usage.





Loob said:


> That's where you're going astray, abda: _a hotel where I stayed _can mean _one of the hotels where I stayed_  - but doesn't necessarily.
> 
> I'm bowing out now, in the hope that someone can explain this better than I
> 
> 
> Loob said:
> 
> 
> 
> That's where you're going astray, abda: _a hotel where I stayed _can mean _one of the hotels where I stayed_  - but doesn't necessarily.
> 
> I'm bowing out now, in the hope that someone can explain this better than I can
> 
> 
> 
> It could, but not according to the original Russian sentence.
Click to expand...


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## abda2405

VicNicSor said:


> It is the only book about Japan you have and have ever bought. As well as the only hotel you stayed at in 2002 in Loob's example (b) in#17.


Let me clarify this for you, even though that might be the only interesting book about Japan you've ever bought, the other person you're telling that to might not know that, since you're not implying that!


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## RedwoodGrove

abda2405 said:


> But what they have said still makes little sense, I mean why would you say I found a hotel where I stayed,  meaning one of the hotels where I stayed but that's not even the point because the original text negates it.



Just stick with the basics. If once in a lifetime you come up with a reason to say "a hotel where I stayed" then I guarantee you will know it upon that occasion.   You may note that I am taking the chances from 1 out of 100 to _once in a lifetime_. I am urging you to forget about random linguistic occurrences.



VicNicSor said:


> It is the only book about Japan you have and have ever bought. As well as the only hotel you stayed at in 2002 in Loob's example (b) in#17.



Again, there are potentially _many_ interesting books on Japan. There was only a limited number of hotels where we stayed.


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## abda2405

RedwoodGrove said:


> Just stick with the basics. If once in a lifetime you come up with a reason to say "a hotel where I stayed" then I guarantee you will know it upon that occasion.   You may note that I am taking the chances from 1 out of 100 to _once in a lifetime_. I am urging you to forget about random linguistic occurrences.
> 
> 
> 
> Again, there are potentially _many_ interesting books on Japan. There was only a limited number of hotels where we stayed.


Yeah you're right...


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## abda2405

Thanks everyone for your help! The thread is closed. I mean, I don't know if I can close it, but I mean I'm satisfied with the answers provided above.


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## VicNicSor

RedwoodGrove said:


> Again, there are potentially _many_ interesting books on Japan. There was only a limited number of hotels where we stayed.


I have *an *interesting book about Japan that I bought at a fair last week. = I have *an *interesting book about Japan. I bought it at a fair last week.
The point is that I can say this even when I have only one such book, not whether there are other such books elsewhere...
I have only one such book. And I stayed at only one hotel in 2002....


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## abda2405

VicNicSor said:


> I have *an *interesting book about Japan that I bought at a fair last week. = I have *an *interesting book about Japan. I bought it at a fair last week.
> The point is that I can say this even when I have only one such book, not whether there are other such books elsewhere...
> I have one such book. And I stayed at only one hotel in 2002....


I'm sorry,  friend, but you're not getting my point. Neither does what you said make sense, but it's ok, I learned that a language is sometimes so hard to understand. But thanks for the effort to help.


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## boozer

abda2405 said:


> I'm just saying that even if you happened to have stayed at a hotel, when you say you've found it(assuming that you found it now, but you stayed at the hotel a long time ago, and you're saying hey I found it!! It's that hotel) , you mean you've found that one hotel in which you stayed, not one of the thousands there might be!


As already explained, it could be one of the many = not defined.

Also, for you it may be the hotel, but for your listener it is still one of the many hotels where you had stayed = not defined


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## abda2405

boozer said:


> As already explained, it could be one of the many = not defined.
> 
> Also, for you it may be the hotel, but for your listener it is still one of the many hotels where you had stayed = not defined


I am ruling out that one of the many thing just because the original sentence negates that idea, please I have told you that several times, why do you keep saying that .

Your last point is not clear though.


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## boozer

Oh! I am saying it because this is what it means in English.

If, however, faced with the stark reality of there being only one hotel, the hotel, in Russian, your friend insists on using the indefinite article, he is wrong...


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## abda2405

boozer said:


> Oh! I am saying it because this is what it means in English.
> 
> If, however, faced with the stark reality of their being only one hotel, the hotel, in Russian, your friend insists on using the indefinite article, he is wrong...


But what do you mean by "Also, for you it may be the hotel, but for your listener it is still one of the many hotels where you had stayed = not defined"
But when you're saying you found it, you're saying you found that particular hotel that you stayed in. Even if it might not be the hotel for your listener, after hearing the "where I stayed..." part, you'd automatically understand  that it is the hotel.


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## boozer

When you introduce a new idea/object, etf., one that has not been mentioned before, it is still not defined. But that is apparently not the case here...


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## abda2405

boozer said:


> When you introduce a new idea/object, etf., one that has not been mentioned before, it is still not defined. But that is apparently not the case here...


It's specified by the where clause,  isn't it?


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## boozer

abda2405 said:


> It's specified by the where clause,  isn't it?


Not necessarily. The clause comes after. For example:
I found a car that had been repainted.
Your listener does not know anything about the car - for him, it is one of the many repainted cars out there. You have just introduced it to him. Next time you can say 'the car cost me 500 pounds'. Your listener is already familiar with it. So are you.

The same could be true in your example in English, if your listener was supposed to know there were several hotels at which you had stayed. But you are adamant that your Russian listener knows the opposite, namely that there was only one hotel.


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## abda2405

boozer said:


> Not necessarily. The clause comes after. For example:
> I found a car that had been repainted.
> Your listener does not know anything about the car - for him, it is one of the many repainted cars out there. You have just introduced it to him. Next time you can say 'the car cost me 500 pounds'. Your listener is already familiar with it. So are you.
> 
> The same could be true in your example in English, if your listener was supposed to know there were several hotels at which you had stayed. But you are adamant that your Russian listener knows the opposite, namely that there was only one hotel.


Now give me an example with a where clause please.


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## boozer

I want to live in a country where people do not pay taxes.


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## Kirill V.

_I want to move to a country where we stayed a few years ago._
(I am saying this not to a person with whom I stayed there but to a different person).

Here I do mean some specific country, the one where "we" stayed, but I am saying _a country_ intentionally because I do not want to specify the country. So one reason to use _a_ may be the desire to intentionally sound vague.

As Redwood said above, I think occasionally you may want to say _a hotel_ in your example, but you should have some good reason for that, so it is only in some very specific context that one would say that, and since I understand your context (in Russian) is streight and clear and excludes all such exotic situations I think _the_ is correct and whoever is saying the opposite is wrong or puts the sentence in a different context compared to how you see it.



> Thanks everyone for your help! The thread is closed. I mean, I don't know if I can close it,...



No, unfortunately you can't. Once you've started it you must live with it, unless moderators decide to do away with all this business


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## Loob

You might like to look again at boozer's illuminating post 42 and 48, kayve.  (You were also very close in post 24.)

It's to do with the way the infomation is being presented.

Let's take another example.

John loses a book.  A week later, he's talking to his friend Andrew.
_Andrew: Did you have a good day yesterday?
John: Yes I did.  I found a book I'd lost last week._
_or_​_John: Yes I did.  I found the book I'd lost last week._​
Both the red and the blue sentences are possible, and in each case there was only one lost book.  The difference is in the way that the information is being presented.  In the blue sentence, the loss of the book is being presented as "old" information - as if John expects Andrew to know about the lost book.  In the red sentence, it's being presented as "new" information: as if John doesn't expect Andrew to know about the book.

In factual terms, it actually doesn't matter whether Andrew does or doesn't know about the loss of the book: the difference lies in the presentation of the information.


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## elroy

This thread is kind of a mess because abda2405's question and his disagreement with his friend are the result of a _Russian_ sentence and a _Russian_ context that have not been fully and clearly explained and have only been hinted at sporadically throughout the thread.  I fully agree with all of Loob's posts, but it's impossible to know which article is more appropriate in abda2405's specific Russian context because we don't know enough about it to make that call.


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## Kirill V.

elroy said:


> This thread is kind of a mess because abda2405's question and his disagreement with his friend are the result of a _Russian_ sentence and a _Russian_ context that have not been fully and clearly explained and have only been hinted at sporadically throughout the thread.  I fully agree with all of Loob's posts, but it's impossible to know which article is more appropriate in abda2405's specific Russian context because we don't know enough about it to make that call.



Right, what we've been doing here has been speculating on various possibilities, mainly for fun, I would say It's been fun and an educating discussion for me, at least, I hope abda and others have found it entertaining, too


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## Kirill V.

Loob said:


> You might like to look again at boozer's illuminating post 42 and 48, kayve.  (You were also very close in post 24.)
> 
> It's to do with the way the infomation is being presented.
> 
> Let's take another example.
> 
> John loses a book.  A week later, he's talking to his friend Andrew.
> _Andrew: Did you have a good day yesterday?
> John: Yes I did.  I found a book I'd lost last week._
> _or_​_John: Yes I did.  I found the book I'd lost last week._​
> Both the red and the blue sentences are possible, and in each case there was only one lost book.  The difference is in the way that the information is being presented.  In the blue sentence, the loss of the book is being presented as "old" information - as if John expects Andrew to know about the lost book.  In the red sentence, it's being presented as "new" information: as if John doesn't expect Andrew to know about the book.
> 
> In factual terms, it actually doesn't matter whether Andrew does or doesn't know about the loss of the book: the difference lies in the presentation of the information.



Thank you, Loob! I fully understand your example with a book

However, for some reason in the original abda's sentence _a_ looks much less likely to me, i.e. I do see there can be contexts where one may want to say
_I found a hotel where we stayed a few years ago_
but what comes to my mind when I think about it are either rather exotic situations (I mean, with the limitation that I know there was only one hotel where "we" stayed and no sequencing of events), or requires paraphrasing like that in my earlier post with your correction (_I found a hotel - one where we stayed a few years ago_).


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## boozer

There can be other reasons for using 'a' as well. For instance: there were several countries where you stayed; or your listener does not know anything about the country in question, so why even mention the name? What matters is that the version with 'a' is grammatical and possible...


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## abda2405

Thank you all again for your answers, and I do know and I did know of all the situations you wrote up there, I just thought since there's a "we", it probably means that both the speaker and the one they're talking to know what hotel that is, but yeah if there were several hotels, or if that "we" was some other "we" that did not include the speaker's interlocutor, then the usage of a would be justified. Thanks once again!


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