English questions from overseas. What do you think about this sentence.?

Question

Please, have a look these sentense.
1. I ate a chicken last night.
2. I ate chiken last night.

first sentence means,
I killed a chicken and I cooked myself.

Second one means
I bought chicken at shop, and ate.

First sentence sounds strange???

I'm not an English teacher,
Actually we don't have articles in our lnguage. Also there is no countable noune anf uncountable noune.

So It is difficult to understand.

Do you believe it???

Answer 1

If you really intend to say "I killed a chicken and I cooked myself.", you might be more specific and say, "I killed one of the chickens in our farm and cooked it for dinner." Saying "I ate a chicken last night" does not say that you killed it, or that you cooked it. (You could have eaten it at a restaurant) All it means is that you ate a whole chicken last night.

Your second intention, "I bought chicken at shop, and ate." could be indicated more clearly by saying, "I had chicken for dinner last night (at KFC?)."

Answer 2

The second sentence has no consumer meaning included in it. You could have eaten the chicken at your friend's house or at your house or at a store, or food shop. There is also no killing meaning in the first sentence or idea of food preparation in the first sentence.

You are dealing with a definite article --a which limits the amount of chicken to one. And leaving out an article which does not limit the amount of chicken at all. The second sentence could mean that you ate 4 or 5 chickens. It is not stated.

In general usage, the second sentence means that you ate a meal of chicken which could include any number of pieces breasts, drumstick, thighs, etc...

Answer 3

1. I ate a chicken last night - does NOT imply that you killed and cooked the chicken yourself. It simply means you ate a WHOLE chicken last night.

2. I ate chicken last night - means you ate some chicken last night for dinner. It could be that your whole meal consist of chicken or a considerable part of your meal was chicken

So, unless you specifically want to tell someone that you ate a WHOLE chicken (it's usually understandable that it wasn't eaten raw! lol), you should use the second sentence when you want to tell someone you had chicken for dinner.

Answer 4

Are you an English teacher? My bad, you did say it was an overseas question. With that said, the first sentence is poor grammar, not sure it means that they wrung the neck of a chicken, plucked it, boiled it and ate it, just that you ate one. They would not necessarily buy a chicken at a shop either, but I do get your point.

Answer 5

Who is teaching you English? But you are correct, the first sentence sounds strange because most people don't kill and cook a chicken themselves. Most people buy them at the shop and eat them.

That is why we say "I ate chicken" because we had peices of chicken meat.

I would also say that saying "I ate a chicken lastnight" implys that you ate the WHOLE chicken.

Answer 6

It sounds like everyone else has already said.

The first one means you ate a chicken all by yourself.
The second means you ate some chicken but not the whole thing.

Neither makes it sound like you killed or cooked anything or that you bought it.

Answer 7

Both of them work. The first one sounds like you ate a whole live chicken. The second one sounds like you ate some chicken as opposed to some beef.

Answer 8

The only difference is the first sentence implies that you ate an entire chicken yourself (this would = 4 normal portions) so you must have been very hungry. It does not mean that you killed or cooked it yourself necessarilly.

Answer 9

Actually the first sentence makes it sound like you ate an ENTIRE chicken by yourself.

Answer 10

the first sentence does sound a little strange. Also, just reading the sentences I did not infer that "you" either killed or bought the chicken in question.