(un) semen?

(un) semen?
 

I was reading El Mundo when I came across a headline, which I thought was a bit funny, grammatically. It goes like this:

Más de la mitad de los jóvenes españoles tiene un semen de mala calidad.

And again, in the context:

El 57,8% de los jóvenes españoles presenta un semen de calidad inferior [...]

Is it common to refer to semen in this way in Spanish? It's the first time I have seen semen being referred to in this way, like there's only "one" of it. I would say simply just, semen, or at least, alguno semen. And also, are there other common constructions like this, where a thing is just referred to as "one" of it, or alike.

I'm not talking about the word, semen, itself, but rather why it is referred to as singular: un semen. I have never seen it being referred to like that before. As an example: In English you wouldn't say: More than half of the Spanish youth have one semen of bad quality; but: More than half of the Spanish youth have one semen of bad quality.

Well, semen is not used in most languages. To mention a few other ways to say it: sæd in Danish and Norwegian, säd in Swedish, siemmeneste in Finnish and jīngyé (精液) in Chinese. It's true though, that many languages have a word close to semen, probably because they all derive from the Latin word, sēmen, which means seed, or also, back then, semen: like Seman in German, sêmen in Portuguese, semya (семя) in Russian, and semeno in Czech.

It's all about what language family the language comes from. Here I mostly used the Indo-european family, except for Chinese (which I included, to show a completely other word) and Finnish.

Hi El Danés

Could it be that the word semen is a collective noun that is singular in form but refers to a group of sperm ? Collective nouns are often uncountable. ?? Just a thought

Ruby

Oh, yeah, that could be the case. But still, normally you wouldn't use an indefinite article, when you are working with collective nouns? Like, you don't say, I have one news for, or, one news of bad quality.

I suppose you could use the definate article 'the' as non countable nouns do not take a/an before them either.

Sólo mencionó la palabra en chino para semen, así que sí lo podemos entender. :)

Yeah, I know.

Unlike English, in Spanish you need to use the article when generalizing about a noun. For example:

(The) Nuns are not supposed to get married. = Las monjas no se deben casar.
(The) Carrots are good for your eyesight. = Las zanahorias te ayudan con la vista.
(The) Cars usually have four wheels. = Por lo general, los coches tienen cuatro ruedas.

The examples above use the definite article; the same is true for the indefinite article.

El joven tiene una fuerza tremenda. = The young man has (an) incredibe strength. (If you use 'an' here, the sentence no longer means what the Spanish version means.)
El estudiante de hoy tiene un nivel académico más bajo que antes. = Today's student has lower academic achievements than before.
Mi perro tiene una inteligencia asombrosa. = My dog is surprisingly smart.
El niño demostró un conocimiento avanzado de... = The child demonstrated advanced knowledge of...

I don't know if these examples help or not. This is not something specific to semen, it's about how Spanish uses the articles more often than English.

I am aware of the of the usage of the definite article for generalizing nouns, but not the indefinite. Can you use them interchangeably, or do certain words need the indefinite article for generalizing, while others need the definite article?

The examples were great, and helpful. I just need to get it all summarized, which I have, if you could give an answer to the question of mine above. :)

Edit:
Of course, after some thinking, I think I got it.

I should rather think of it as a, and not one, like in:

Más de la mitad de los jóvenes españoles tiene un semen de mala calidad.
More than half of the Spanish youth have a semen of bad quality.

Or:

Mi perro tiene una inteligencia asombrosa.
My dog has a surprisingly intelligence.

I know this may not apply to all sentences, but that's no surprise, as most sentences can't be translated literally from English to Spanish and vice versa. Now, when I'm thinking of it, un(a), is used exactly like in Danish. In Danish it would be: Mere end halvdelen af unge spaniere har en sæd af dårlig kvalitet. I wonder why I didn't think of this before. Thanks, Tomísimo, for the examples, now they really helped me. :)

You've hit the nail on the head! I'm glad the examples helped.

You can get your semen examined. I know that you can get your semen examined and get to know whether or not it's of a good quality (i.e. how the chances are for you to get children), for about 300 DKR (MXN: 617, USD: 55, GBP: 31) here in Denmark.

Thansk for the information.

:banghead::duh::banghead: :duh:STUPID QUESTION ALERT:banghead::duh::banghead::duh:

How the hell does someone know if their semen is of "good" quality or not?

OMG......

Does this mean that those young men with "bad quality" semen turn out "bad" kids?

Hey, I forewarned you about the stupid question!!

:?::?::?:

You either have :showoff: sperm or :crazy: sperm I guess.