The thing is that there are always exceptions and native speakers don't always know why. So when an East Asian mentions countable vs. uncountable nouns - a distinction that is not very important for native speakers of English as we by and large get this right naturally - it could confuse an English speaker. For example - "I went to the cheese fair and there were hundreds of different cheeses to sample" - could all native speakers explain why the usually uncountable noun cheese goes into the plural? We just don't think about it like that. The same goes for Irish - Irish native speakers rarely want to explain their thoughts on subjunctive usage or to explain why they drop lenition in certain instances - and the thing is that we should not assume that they are wrong in what their instinct tells them to do, even if we are armed with all the linguistic terminology and books printed in Dublin saying the opposite.

The Congo (also Zaire for a long while), The Sudan, both dropped the "the" after independence.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Exceptions? 'Cheeses' like 'water', 'wines' etc refers to a type (the cheeses of France, the water of Italy and so on).

Working away looking to map out the nouns of English, I found a large number of sub-types to each of the distinctions mentioned above (for example, in Proper Nouns, simple reference 'Ireland', titles via apposition 'Bishop Browne', city commercial premises 'Independence House', stand-ins 'London' =the British Government) and these were very robust along with the other categories.

The same for aspect. English is tight on that too (at least it seems to me anyways)

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

Seo an bhrí atá le baint agam féin as:
This way would make sense to me:

Bhí hobad ann agus cónaí air i bpoll sa talamh. Níor pholl gránna, salach, fliuch lán cosamar péisteanna agus boladh greallaí ann é seo ná níor pholl tirim, dealbh, gainmheach gan tada ann le suí air ná gan tada ann le n-ithe é seo ach oiread: poll hobaid ab ea é, agus chiallaigh sin gur ann a bhí an compord le fáil.
Bhí doras ciorclach agus dath glasuaine air agus murlán práis le loinnir bhuí díreach ina lár. Ar oscailt an dorais bhí halla de dhéanamh cruinn faoi mar a bheadh tollán ann: tollán an-chompordach gan deatach agus le adhmad ar na ballaí agus leacracha agus cairpéad ar na hurláir ann. Bhí cathaoireacha snasta curtha ar fáil agus neart bacán le haghaidh hataí agus cótaí ann - thaitníodh cuairteoirí go mór leis an hobad. Lean an tollán cas ar aghaidh píosa maith ach ní go díreach i dtreo thaobh an chnoic - ‘An Cnoc’ a ghlaodh muintir uile na háite air - cnoc a bhí breac le doirse beaga ciorclacha ar thaobh amháin de agus a bhí breac leo ar an taobh eile chomh maith.

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Bí cinnte de go nglacfaidh triúr le gach aistriúchán a thabharfar.
Be sure to get three in agreement with a translation given.

Braoin, that is much better. There are numerous points in that that bear bringing out. I can't understand why Professor Williams, an Englishman, is allowed to publish translations in Irish without them being edited by native speakers. You can see already that the published book is rubáiste ar fad.

I thought píosa maith sounded more natural there.

I'd really love to read a book by ye! I'd pay cash to see it realized, tho maybe I'm in the minority. A crowdsourced pay system would be great

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an-deas

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
___________________________________________________________

Shh... you're undermining the point, which is that the average speaker would struggle to explain the difference if they hadn't been told by an English teacher already. This is why I don't trust native intuition in any language. Talking about crowdfunding, maybe that's the only way to get a decent corpus study going....

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

Actually, that in mostly translationese. "The Ukraine" was a half-translation of the Russian for "the borderlands" (according to a BBC News web article I read earlier this year), and "the Lebanon" was derived from a Biblical name featuring the definite article (according to Wikipedia). I've never encountered "the Palestine" before, and Google isn't helping on that one.

It seems to be that there's four modern situations where the article is used with placenames: compound names with generic nouns as head (the United Kingdom, The People's Republic of China etc); plurals (the Netherlands, the Himalayas; and rivers (the Liffy, the Amazon), forests (the Amazon) and deserts (the Sahara.

The plural rule clearly evolved out of the compound nouns rule (hence "the Philippine Islands" becoming "the Philippines"), but it seems like it's taken on a life of its own. Equally you could argue that the rivers and forests rules evolved by the same mechanism, although you'd need to look at old maps to prove it.

In the case of "the Congo", I'd speculate that the article has been borrowed in from the name of the river and/or the forest. The Sudan apparantly originates from an Arabic name with the definite article, so that's translationese as well

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.