1) Plural words that are abstract or general don't take an article. Ich fürchte mich vor Spinnen = I'm afraid of spiders in general. Ich fürchte mich vor den Spinnen = I'm afraid of particular spiders. 2) Some set expressions form a compound, and some of those are used without an article. Ich schreibe/führe Protokoll = the action by itself Ich schreibe/führe ein/das Protokoll = a concrete transcript. As soon as you change the noun and it's no longer a set expression, that no longer works: Ich schreibe ein/das Besprechungsprotokoll. (right) Ich schreibe Besprechungsprotokoll. (wrong)

Hi Zoe, It looks like you can speak English well, so it might be easier to understand if you look at these sentences in English. "Ich fürchte mich vor Spinnen" in English would be "I am afraid of spiders." As you see, there is no article in English, either. : ) In this case, because you are not afraid of any certain spiders, and you are afraid of just spiders in general, you don't use an article in the sentence. "Ich schreibe Protokoll" is "I'm taking minutes" in English. Again, no article. This one is harder to explain why, though. Someone probably started saying it that way a long time ago, and now everyone is used to it and it has become normal. : ) I hope this helps.