Maybe this would be more natural without "the"?

+1

I agree it would be more natural, but "the dinner" is possible if we are talking about a specific dinner, like a special dinner celebrating someone's promotion, or a birthday, or a special dinner for important guests. That said, I wouldn't ever likely say this. However, one of TRANG's rules was and still is, I think, not to change sentences that are not incorrect.

The Japanese doesn't carry that implication, which is why I added the following in 2012.

[#1422380] My mother was busy cooking dinner. (CK) *audio*

So all we can do in cases like this is leave them unadopted?

I think in the case of ownerless sentences, if two natives agree they should be changed, it's OK to apply our usual procedures and change them. This one will be more likely to confuse learners than help them. I'm going to put a @change tag on it. Of course, if anyone wants to save it from being merged with the other sentence added almost 10 years ago, please go ahead and adopt it. :)

The Portuguese and Spanish would match just as well with the natural sentence

Please go to #1422380.
This sentence has been deleted because it was a duplicate.