Onin et al. (2008) and Ko et al. (2009) argue that article choice in L2-acquisition by L2 English speakers reflects systemic access to universal semantic features such as definiteness, specificity, and partitivity. Their study focuses on L2-English learners whose native languages lack articles. Ko et al.`s (2009) claim that universal semantic features such as definiteness are at play when these L2-English learners acquire English articles is based on the assumption that speakers of article-less languages such as Korean are not influenced by L1-transfer with regard to article acquisition since article-less languages simply do not have articles. The present study, however, shows that the acquisition of the English definite article by speakers of article-less languages also involves L1-transfer effects, though in a different way from Spanish. This kind of L1-transfer can account for the non-random error patterns attested in L1-Korean L2-English speakers. Thus, the present study argues that the claim from the two previous studies (that adult L2 English speakers from article-less L1 languages can access universal semantic features such as definiteness) is neither fully supported nor convincing.