Article (We need THE new curtains)

[Yankee]

.
a. We need the new curtains.
You have already bought or ordered new curtains (and you might be justifying this fact, for example).

b. We need new curtains.
You have not already bought or ordered new curtains.
.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Pamela]

Absolutely agree with Amy.

[Yankee]

Hi Tung Quoc

You're comparing sentences with two different verbs and that doesn't work very well.

Let me ask you a question:

What does "We need oranges" mean?

Amy
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Amy
.
ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Yankee]

Hi Quoc

No, it doesn't really mean "all", it means "some". What is true is that the old curtains are not OK anymore. Therefore we need to buy (some) new curtains. But you don't know specifically which curtains yet.

You cannot say the new curtains before you have selected or bought new curtains.

I could also say "The oranges in that basket are bad for you" if those specific oranges are all old and rotten. You use the word the to talk about something (or things) specific.

Amy
_________________
Amy
.
ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[englishmajor]

Dear Quoc,

I hope you have bought THE new curtains. We needed new curtains. The ones we had were very old.

Englishmajor