Pronouns Are Not Always Necessary

Imagine that you come across the following paragraph: “A young man gets hurt. He goes to the hospital. He is cured by a doctor. He comes out from the hospital. He stops a taxi and goes home. After taking a painkiller, he goes to sleep. The next day, he feels better and goes to work.”

As you may notice, the narration required the use of six pronouns (“he”), one for each sentence. (Of course, we can use connectives like “and” to avoid repetition, but we are not discussing the accurate style of the English sentences here.) This is something common and unavoidable in English. However, it is not the common rule for the Armenian language. Unlike English or French, if you are talking in the first person, for instance, you do not need to say “I” in every single sentence. Armenian, like Spanish or Arabic, is what linguists call a null-subject language, where the subject may be just implicit. Therefore, instead of using an (ան “he”) in every single sentence of the above mentioned paragraph, you can say it in the following way:

“Yeridasart muh guh viravorvi. Hivantanots g’erta. Pujishgi me goghmeh guh poozhvi. Hivantanotsen g’elle. Taxi me guh getsneh yev doon g’erta. Tegh arneleh yedk, g’erta bargeloo. Hachort oruh, aveli lav guh uzka yev kordzi g’erta.”

(Երիտասարդ մը կը վիրաւորուի։ Հիւանդանոց կ՚երթայ։ Բժիշկի մը կողմէ կը բուժուի։ Հիւանդանոցէն կ՚ելլէ։ Թաքսի մը կը կեցնէ եւ տուն կ՚երթայ։ Դեղ առնելէ ետք, կ՚երթայ պառկելու։ Յաջորդ օրը, աւելի լաւ կը զգայ եւ գործի կ՚երթայ)։

As you see, there was not a single pronoun in the paragraph. Of course, you may include one or two, if you feel it necessary. But that is up to you and your personal stylistic preferences. 

This does not mean, of course, that you can suppress the use of pronouns. You should use them when you want to emphasize something or you want to avoid any kind of confusion. For instance, if you needed to translate Leonardo DiCaprio’s famous sentence from Titanic, “I am the king of the world!”, then it would be better to translate it Yes ashkharhi takavorn em (Ես աշխարհի թագաւորն եմ) and not Ashkarhi takavorn em (Աշխարհի թագաւորն եմ), because he wanted to emphasized the “I” first and then the fact of being... “the king of the world.”

As we have said many other times, if Armenian is not your native language and you are learning it, then you need to get the “feeling” of the language, which is different from the “feeling” of the language you learned first, in this case, English. Otherwise, you may risk talking... translated English.