The or not the that is the question!

The commonest word in English is the; in every hundred words of correct English on
average the appears 6 times. It is even more frequent when learners of English write; in
every hundred words of learner English the appears an average of 7 times. The fact is,
learners of English sometimes use the when they should not; using the when it shouldnt
be used accounts for nearly 3% of all mistakes in student writing.
Mostly this excessive use of the occurs before nouns in the plural form (the potatoes,
the groups, for example) and before uncountable nouns (the alcohol and the democracy,
for example). The problem is that often it is correct to write the before plural nouns
and uncount nouns, and often it isnt correct.
So, when should we use the before plural nouns and uncount nouns? And when
shouldnt we? Lets look at these sentences:
a) Tom likes potatoes
b) Tom likes the potatoes
Both sentences are correct English and both have the same translation in Spanish: A
Tom le gustan las patatas. But they have different meanings Tom likes the potatoes
refers to some specific potatoes that Tom likes perhaps the potatoes he has for dinner,
or the potatoes he eats in his favourite restaurant, or the potatoes he buys in his local
shop . If you write Tom likes the potatoes your readers should know which potatoes
Tom likes; that is, you should make clear which specific potatoes you are referring to.
On the other hand, if you write Tom likes potatoes, then you are saying that Tom likes
potatoes in general; probably potatoes are one of Toms favourite foods. So the key
question when you have to decide whether to write the potatoes or just potatoes, is:
What are you referring to potatoes in general or some specific potatoes?
Lets look at two sentences with the uncount noun democracy:
a) Many Greek writers and philosophers criticised the democracy.
b) Many Greek writers and philosophers criticised democracy.
(Again we would probably translate both sentences into Spanish in the same way:
Muchos escritores y filsofos griegos criticaron la democracia.) In the first sentence the
writer is referring to some specific democracy, and the preceding sentences probably
answer the question, Which specific democracy is the writer referring to? In the
second sentence the writer means democracy in general.
Sometimes uncount nouns are made specific by the wider context in which they occur,
sometimes by adjectives that precede them or the words that follow them. For example:
He wrote about the intense hatred that he encountered because of the colour of his skin.
(Escribi sobre el odio intenso que encontr debido al color de su piel.)
Here intense and especially that he encountered help to make this a specific hatred and
its easy to answer the question: Which specific hatred is the writer referring to?
Compare with a sentence like

Hatred is a negative emotion.

(El odio es una emocin negativa).