Revisit: specific question about possessive vs. definite article

[laepelba]

My workbook asked me to translate a paragraph about car sales advertising which contained the following sentence:

English: Take advantage of our end-of-the-year offer!

The answer the book gives for the translation is: ¡Aproveche la oferta de fin de año!

My question is about the use of "la". Why not "nuestra"? Would it be okay to write: ¡Aproveche nuestra oferta de fin de año!

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Yes, it would, but "la" is enough to express the same idea, as we use less possessive pronouns than you do in English.
If there is a store advertising special prices, it's pretty obvious that they are not suggesting you to take advantage of prices in other stores.

[laepelba]

Got it. Thanks!

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar

as we use less possessive pronouns than you do in English. (we use possessive pronouns less frequently....)

As a postscript, a better known example is the use of parts of the body: levantarle la mano.

[laepelba]

Thanks for making that correction, Perikles. I was going to actually suggest "we use fewer possessive pronouns..."

I know about the body parts one. But I keep forgetting that it's a wider usage, applying more generally to all nouns, and not just to a very limited list of them.....

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Thank you both for corrections, now I know why the sentence didn't sound right.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by laepelba

Thanks for making that correction, Perikles. I was going to actually suggest "we use fewer possessive pronouns..."

I did wonder about this, and I can't be bothered actually counting them, but Spanish must actually have more of them, not fewer, but used much less often.

Edit: cross-posting.

[laepelba]

[Rusty]

And just to nitpick, you're talking about possessive adjectives (or determiners), not possessive pronouns.

[laepelba]

Thanks for those links, Rusty.