Articles and Plurals

Whats an article? Consider the following: el librola silla el cuadernola puerta el bolígrafola mesa What do you think el means? How about la? If you said the, youre right. Both el and la mean the. But how do you know if you should use el or la if you want to say the?

Look again: el librola silla el cuadernola puerta el bolígrafola mesa Do all the words with el have something in common? Do all the words with la have something in common? Most words that end in o get el. Most words that end in a get la.

We call nouns that get el masculine. We call nouns that get la feminine. Theres no good reason we call a book (el libro) masculine and a chair (la silla) feminine. The reason we do so is that words that really are feminine, like girl (la chica), daughter (la hija), and niece (la sobrina), get la, so we call all words that get la feminine words. Likewise, words that really are masculine, like boy (el chico), son (el hijo), and nephew (el sobrino), get el, so we call all words that get el masculine words.

So... el libroel cuadernoel bolígrafo are masculine and la sillala puertala mesa are feminine. But what about...

... words that dont end in –o or –a? la claseel papel la florel lápiz la nieveel reloj How do you know if the word is masculine or feminine? Thats easy: you memorize it. If you learn a noun that doesnt end in –o or –a, youll have to memorize if el or la goes with it so youll know if its masculine or feminine. Likewise, if you come across a word thats an exception, like el mapa el día la mano you have to memorize it.

Look at our samples of masculine and feminine nouns again: el librola silla el cuadernola puerta el bolígrafola mesa Bad news: you cant use el and la if you make the noun plural. In Spanish (and many other languages), if you make the noun plural, you also have to make the article plural: los libroslas sillas los cuadernoslas puertas los bolígrafoslas mesas So there are 4 ways to say the in Spanish: masculine feminine singularella pluralloslas

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.here

El, la, los, las in Spanish and the in English are called definite articles. If I say, I want the car, you know I have a definite car in mind. If I say, I want a car, I dont have a definite car in mind. So we have indefinite articles too. un librouna silla unos librosunas sillas Un libro means a book, and una silla means a chair. (If we used the word for apple, we would have an apple, but in Spanish, theres no difference between a and an.) el libro = the booklos libros = the books un libro = a bookunos libros = ? books We cant say a books. So the translation for unos andunas is some.

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.here

Plurals Making words plural in Spanish is much easier than making them plural in English: librolibros sillasillas hombrehombres papelpapeles florflores relojrelojes Can you figure out the rule? If the word ends in a vowel, you add –s; if the word ends in a consonant, you add –es.

No child-children, mouse-mice, goose-geese, etc. There are only two exceptions to the rule. One is words that have 8 letters or more and already end in –s: el cumpleaños los cumpleaños Rememberonly words that have 8 letters or more. The word país doesnt have eight letters, so it gets –es like all other words that end with a consonant: países. The other exception is days of the week that end in –s: el luneslos lunes el marteslos martes etc., but el sábadolos sábados el domingolos domingos