"Experience" VERSUS "The experience"

[Tom]

Hi

Could you please tell me which one of the given sentences sounds correct to you?

1- Not many people have had experience of real hunger.

2- Not many people have had the experience of real hunger.

Tom

[Mister Micawber]

.
Both sound fine to me. Experience is a word that often appears both countably and uncountably.
.
_________________
Canadian-American native speaker
who teaches English for a living at Mister Micawber's
ESL cafe: Interview with Mr. Micawber

[Conchita]

Just to add my little bit -- wouldn't it sound more natural to say 'Not many people have experienced real hunger'?

Talking about natural English, I'm not sure why, but 'the following sentences', 'the sentences below' or even (though reluctantly) 'the sentences given' sound much better to me than 'the given sentences'.

Having said that, by all means say what sounds best to your ears!

[Alan]

Hi Conchita,

Come to think of it/about it I'm not too crazy about the use of the word 'given' (Note how I'm following Canadian 45's advice by using quotation marks). Somehow it sounds to me a bit formal kind of legalistic, if you know what I mean. I think I'd plump for your 'sentences below/above' scenario. Or maybe I'd go for in the 'sentences quoted'. No criticism to our friend, Tom who seems to like the use of 'given'.

To me 'given' is used more in the following sort of structure;

Given that all politicians are raving lunatics it's nevertheless refreshing when one of them displays an ounce of sense.

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Guy Fawkes Night for You

[Tom]

A lot of thanks to Mister Micawber, Conchita and Alan for your valuable comments and frank appraisal of my sentence structures.

Please see below. Do all seem OK now?

1- Could you please tell me which one of the sentences given below sounds correct to you?

2- Could you please tell me which one of the sentences quoted below sounds correct to you?

3- Could you please tell me which one of the following sentences sounds correct to you?

Tom

[Tom]

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

They're all correct, but sentence 3 is by far my favorite.

You could also say:
Could you please tell me which of the following sounds correct to you?

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