She has an intimate knowledge of the Asian market. (Can we omit the 'an'?)
He managed to find contacts who had inside knowledge of the organization. (Can we use 'an' before the 'inside knowledge'?)
Many sincere thanks in advance.
I'm not a native speaker, and my answer may not be a perfect one, but as a same asian, I've always had the same problem.
1.She has an intimate knowledge of the Asian market. - Indefinite article(A or an) should be used for concrete, actual, specific things not conceptual things. In this case, knowledge means some kind of accumulated facts about something, 知识. 知识 is something countable and can be a specific one for some field or area. So I think "A" shouldn't be be omitted.
2. He managed to find contacts who had inside
knowledge of the organization. - This doesn't mean 知识 but "being aware of" 认识 that is not countable. So "a" is not desirable in here.
In short, I think you should use "a or an" for countable things(actual, specific, concrete) while omission of them for uncountable things(concepts such as water, money, beauty, laziness, etc that are in your mind)
Even water, money, beauty can be countable nouns when they refer to specific things.
ex)I need water(concept in your mind)-> I need a water that's quite different from this water(a kind of specific water ).
Beauty is only skin-deep(concept)-> Liz taylor was a great beauty(specific person).
希望 有帮助 !