Does the word 'single' in this sentence need an article?

Question

My friend wrote: "Why? Because Russia has always been a bit of a paradox to the most of the world: nobody knows much about it, never been there or knows single Russian person."

I told her I think it should be "a single Russian person." Which is correct?

Answer 1

Yes. Single is an ordinary adjective, not a determiner like some or both.

Answer 2

It is a general rule of English that noun phrases with singular countable nouns require a Determiner (a word like a, the, this, that, every, each, some, one, two, no, any, my, Bob's and so on).

1. *I need pen. ^{(ungrammatical)}
2. I need a/the/this/that pen. ^{(grammatical)}

The word pen is countable, and in (1) above we see that when singular pen appears on its own with no Determiner, it's ungrammatical.

In the Original Poster's example, the noun person is both countable and singular. It therefore requires a Determiner:

3. *single Russian person ^{(ungrammatical as a whole noun phrase)}

4. a single Russian person ^{(grammatical)}

OP is correct, here.

Answer 3

The correct form:

“Because Russia has always been a bit of a paradox to most of the world: nobody knows much about it, has ever been there, or knows a single Russian person.”

(That is grammatically correct. I would question whether “paradox” is the right word to use. Perhaps “puzzle” or “mystery” would be be better. Plus, do most people know zero Russians?)