Libros vs los libros

Question

In the quiz "No usamos ________ en mi colegio a menudo" the correct answer is given as "libros," not "los libros."  Why is the article not appropriate here?

Silvia Piriz · Accepted Answer

Hola Bob M.
Great question!
In the sentence "No usamos ______ en mi colegio a menudo" the correct answer is "libros" without the article "los" because we are speaking generally about books as a category.
In Spanish, when you're talking about things in general, like "we don't use books" in a general sense, you often omit the article. This is different from English, where we usually say "we don’t use the books" or just "books" with no article depending on context. But in Spanish, if you said "los libros", it would sound like you're talking about some specific books, not books in general.
So the version without the article is more natural here:
No usamos libros en mi colegio a menudo.
Hope that helps!
Un saludo
Silvia