and didn’t understand why it said “DIE Menschen” instead of just “Menschen.” I’ve seen that a few times, and I don’t understand why “the” is used in a sentence where it’s not needed.
Another example is: Der Herbst ist nicht einmal offiziell angekommen, und es fühlt sich schon so warm und gemütlich.
Why is “DER” added when the sentence means “Autumn has not even officially started…”
They have a greater tendency to use the article than we do - it’s just how it is. I don’t think there is a hard and fast rule? One just has to learn case by case where to do this.
(Don’t worry about it too much. With enough exposure you’ll be amazed how quickly you get used to saying, for example, “in der Türkei” instead of “in Turkey”, etc, etc.)
In the romance languages like Spanish and French, for instance, they use the definite article to define things as a class. Like, “I like the cats, I do not like the dogs.” etc. German doesn’t really do that but…the point is… “The” in the different European languages has different use patterns. Germans prefer to say stuff like,“Der Sommer” if I’m not just hallucinating. I’m tired.