in search of some advice of using articles

[ant54rus]

Hello. I'm an English learner and have got a question. I'll be grateful if you don't go past and help me. My question is about using articles. Imagine a situation where you have a broken thing, for instanse a laptop, and asking a support for help. Assume you need to choose between two statements:

1. ... I have a broken laptop ...

2. ... I have the broken laptop ...

In this situation, from my point of view, I have a definite thing - my laptop. On the other hand, a support man doesn't know about it at all. So, how would you say? What is the more proper way to say that?

Thank you so much for your answers.

[John238922]

Does this help?

I have a broken laptop [that I want to speak to you about].

I have the broken laptop [that I have spoken to you about].

[Explorer]

Hello [mention]ant54rus[/mention] and welcome;

This is not the right subforum to ask this kind of questions. What's your native language? You may also want to ask other people to help you in your own language.

[Stasia]

[mention]Explorer[/mention] and [mention]ant54rus[/mention] - I moved this topic from Duome requests to I speak English: Discussions, I think it might fit here better.

[wayfarer]

Hello. I'm an English learner and have got a question. I'll be grateful if you don't go past and help me. My question is about using articles. Imagine a situation where you have a broken thing, for instanse a laptop, and asking a support for help. Assume you need to choose between two statements:

1. ... I have a broken laptop ...

2. ... I have the broken laptop ...

In this situation, from my point of view, I have a definite thing - my laptop. On the other hand, a support man doesn't know about it at all. So, how would you say? What is the more proper way to say that?

Thank you so much for your answers.

"I have a broken laptop" is the correct phrase here when you are speaking to a support engineer who hasn't dealt with that laptop before.

Once he/she has started dealing with the laptop then you can can say 'the laptop' or 'my laptop' when referring to it again.

You are correct in recognising that even though your laptop is a definite thing to you, to the engineer it's non-definite to begin with.