“A” or any other quantity of a noun is generalized as a number, followed by a character indicating quantity, followed by the noun. “An apple” is 一个苹果 (yi ge ping guo), 一 literally means one, 个 is the character that denotes quantity (it’s the most common one but some nouns have different quantity adjectives), 苹果 is apple. Two is an exception because there’s a special character for it that’s different from the number two (两个苹果 as opposed to 二个苹果), but every other number quantity is the same as the number itself.
Mandarin:
No “the,” you just say the noun and that’s it.
“A” or any other quantity of a noun is generalized as a number, followed by a character indicating quantity, followed by the noun. “An apple” is 一个苹果 (yi ge ping guo), 一 literally means one, 个 is the character that denotes quantity (it’s the most common one but some nouns have different quantity adjectives), 苹果 is apple. Two is an exception because there’s a special character for it that’s different from the number two (两个苹果 as opposed to 二个苹果), but every other number quantity is the same as the number itself.
I like Chinese as a language