AdieuToLogic • last Thursday at 12:17 AM

> Okay so according to that rule, we should say "I've been to the Germany" because there's one specific Germany we're talking about. Correct?

In this sentence, the object (Germany) does not need an article as the sentence is in active voice[0]. Where an article would be needed is if passive voice[0] were used instead, such as:

  I have been to the country named Germany.         (definite article use)
  I have been to a European country named Germany.  (indefinite article use)

> Also, I can say "I like listening to a music when walking" because there's no one specific music I enjoy ....

This is another example of active voice[0], so "to a music" would be "to music" instead. Converting this sentence to a similar one in passive voice[0] could look like:

  When I go for a walk the music I like to listen to is ...

Note how the subject of the sentence is "walk" and "the music" is additional information related to the walk.

> Moreover, we say "The Lake Michigan" just like we say "The Gulf of Mexico" because in both cases we talk about specific bodies of water. Right?

This one is a bit trickier in that "The Lake Michigan" would be an edge case in most English sentences. I'm sure someone could construct one where it would be correct, but that is what it would take - effort to manufacture an example.

Now "The Gulf of Mexico" is very common due to there being many gulfs and "of" being a preposition. In this context, think of a preposition being similar to a subtype relationship in OOP. For example:

  A gulf is smaller than an ocean.
  The Gulf of Mexico is smaller than an ocean.

In all of the above, remember that English is very inconsistent and has more exception cases than a start-up proof-of-concept. :-)

EDIT:

> Just like I enjoy "listening to a podcast".

This is a great example of "to" also being a preposition and "podcast" being a noun without specificity. Which is why your example is proper English and:

  listening to podcast

Would be off-putting to a native English speaker. Continuing with the "kind of like subtypes in OOP" metaphor, since "podcast" is not a unique entity (noun) the indefinite article "a" is needed.

There are exceptions to this rule involving plurality, adverbs, and context of the sentence fragment as well.

0 - https://writingexplained.org/grammar-dictionary/passive-voic...