Articles and Plurals

1. Articles and Plurals

2. What’s an article? Consider the following: el libro la silla el cuaderno la puerta el bolígrafo la mesa What do you think “el” means? How about “la”? If you said “the,” you’re 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”?

3. Look again: el libro la silla el cuaderno la puerta el bolígrafo la 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.”

4. We call nouns that get “el” masculine. We call nouns that get “la” feminine. There’s 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.

5. So . . . el libro el cuaderno el bolígrafo are masculine and la silla la puerta la mesa are feminine. But what about . . .

6. . . . words that don’t end in –o or –a? la clase el papel la flor el lápiz la nieve el reloj How do you know if the word is masculine or feminine? That’s easy: you memorize it. If you learn a noun that doesn’t end in –o or –a, you’ll have to memorize if “el” or “la” goes with it so you’ll know if it’s masculine or feminine. Likewise, if you come across a word that’s an exception, like el mapa el día la mano you have to memorize it.

7. Look at our samples of masculine and feminine nouns again: el libro la silla el cuaderno la puerta el bolígrafo la mesa Bad news: you can’t 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 libros las sillas los cuadernos las puertas los bolígrafos las mesas So there are 4 ways to say “the” in Spanish: masculine feminine singular el la plural los las

8. Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.

9. 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 don’t have a definite car in mind. So we have indefinite articles too. un libro una silla unos libros unas 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, there’s no difference between “a” and “an.”) el libro = the book los libros = the books un libro = a book unos libros = ? books We can’t say “a books.” So the translation for “unos” and “unas” is “some.”

10. Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.

11. Plurals Making words plural in Spanish is much easier than making them plural in English: libro libros silla sillas hombre hombres papel papeles flor flores reloj relojes 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.

12. 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 Remember—only words that have 8 letters or more. The word país doesn’t 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 lunes los lunes el martes los martes etc., but el sábado los sábados el domingo los domingos

13. Click here to go to a brief practice exercise. Then click here to go to your homework.