the use of the article 'a'

To understand the use of the article ‘a’ is especially difficult for me. I wonder why you should put ‘a’ in the phrase of “in a hurry” but not in the case of “in trouble”. Will someone tell me the difference of these two phrases?

No.2 回答者： ragnarok 回答日時： 2002/04/30 14:33

in a hurryは不定冠詞を含む慣用句表現とされている。

この回答へのお礼

Thank you.

お礼日時：2002/04/30 18:13

No.1 回答者： imparfait 回答日時： 2002/04/29 12:40

There is no systematic or logical reason why we should put "a" or not, because those two phrases in your question are both idioms.

In other words, it is of no use to "understand" the gramatical regulation of the two examples, because it would not be applicable to all cases, which is quite different from formulae in mathematics.

I wish you would not study languages in the same way as mathematics.

この回答への補足

Thank you for your advice. Yes, you are right. Language is not mathematics. But what I want is not an advice on language learning but the possible explanation, if any, for the difference between two idioms. I would appreciate if you could give me further response.

補足日時：2002/04/30 07:37