Elena es profesora. Elena is a teacher.
Es general de ejército. He is an army general.
but
Es un socialista tradicional. He’s a traditional socialist. 34.6 (p. 208)
(b) With tal and cierto‘a certain’, and otro‘another’:
Nunca he visto tal cosa.
I’ve never seen such a thing.
con cierta ironía
with a certain irony
(there is, however, an increasing tendency to use the indefinite article
with cierto)
Me trae otra cerveza, por favor.
Bring me another beer, please.
(c) When a class of noun is implied:No tenemos coche. We don’t have a car.
but:
Tenemos un coche en Francia. We have a car in France.4.6 Use of the plural unos, unas
(a)Unos, unas is used as the equivalent of English ‘some’ (also rendered by Spanish
algunos, algunas, see 13.3), especially when ‘some’ is stressed contrastively:
Unas personas se levantaron mientras que otras quedaban sentadas.
Some people stood up while others remained seated.(b)Unos, unas may have the meaning ‘approximately’:
Unos treinta jóvenes estaban platicando en el pasillo.
About thirty youngsters were chatting in the corridor.
(c)Unos, unas also has the meaning of ‘a pair of’ with nouns which permit such an
interpretation:
Llevaba unas gafas de sol muy de moda.
He/she was wearing a pair of very trendy sunglasses.Use of the plural unos, unas 4.6