2.

0 Introduction
Bad news first: The Spanish divide all their nouns in feminine and masculine. Not only that
they divide the nouns related to persons (or personalities like my dog - he is really a great
guy!), but also chairs and walls and cars and the sky has a gender in the mind of a Spaniard.

The good news anyway is that the rule is quite simple. Words that end with an a are
feminine. Masculine words end with an o (very often), an e (also quite often) or with an r.
There are some more cases, to which we will come back later.

With this distinction goes also that there are two (actually three) definite articles with the
Spanish nouns. Feminine nouns get the (definite) feminine article la. Masculine nouns get
the (definite) masculine article el. It is not that difficult so far, is it? In comparison the
English language knows just one definite article the.

Example: (feminine)
la casa = house feminine singular la
las casas = houses feminine plural las

Example: (masculine)
el hombre = man masculine singular el
los hombres = men masculine plural los

Since the basic logic is so clear (of course there are some exceptions, but we will have a look at them
a bit later) there is actually no need to search for any other logic. Please keep in mind that in case
you have studied French or German, the gender in German or French is NOT automatically the same
in Spanish!!

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2.1 la, el, lo, las, los

Besides the idea that every single word has a gender (we will come back to this when looking at
adjectives) there is not much to say about articles.

Example: (feminine)

la casa = house

la carta = letter

Example: (masculine)

el hombre = man

el toro = bull

Besides that the gender of nouns is quite obvious with the ending of the word we will use the
(definite) article in our vocabulary to ease the learning a bit.

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2.2 Formation of plural
As you can see it is pretty easy to form a plural - just add an -s to the noun and use the plural
forms of the definite articles:

la -> las
el -> los

for example:

la casa -> las casas

el hombre -> los hombres

More Examples
la zanahoria = carrot
la zanahoria -> las zanahorias

la muchacha = girl
la muchacha -> las muchachas

el libro = book
el libro -> los libros

la mesa = table
la mesa -> las mesas

la botella = bottle
la botella -> las botellas

el cuaderno = booklet
el cuaderno -> los cuadernos

la silla = chair
la silla -> las sillas

la cocina = kitchen
la cocina -> las cocinas

la torre = tower
la torre -> las torres

el coche = car
el coche -> los coches

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If a noun ends on a consonant (consonants are those letters that are not vowels, i.e.: b, c, d, f,
g, h, j, k , l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z) the noun is a masculine noun and the plural is
formed by adding -es

el tenedor = fork
el tenedor -> los tenedores

el animal = animal
el animal -> los animales

el alemán = German
el alemán -> los alemanes

el pez = fish
el pez -> los peces

la razón = reason
la razón -> las razones

la pared = wall
la pared -> las paredes

el imbécil = idiot
el imbécil -> los imbéciles

As always there is an exception to the rule: there are some words that end with an -o but are
nevertheless feminine. Nevertheless, not to worry the number of those is really small.

la mano = hand
la mano -> las manos

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2.5 Neutral article in Spanish

There is no neutral thing in the Spanish language. Everything is either feminine or masculine. Still
there is a neutral article - What for? The neutral article lo forms a noun from an adjective. It is a
generalisation like in English combination of the + adjective.

bueno = good

lo bueno = the good

lo bueno en ese caso es … = the good in this case is

malo = bad

lo malo = the bad

lo malo en ese caso es … = the bad in this case is

hermoso = beautiful

lo hermoso = the beautiful

lo hermoso con esa chica es… = the beautiful with this

girl is ...

raro = weird, strange

lo raro = the weird, the strange

lo raro es ... = the weird / the strange (thing) is ...

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2.6 Indefinite articles
Beside the definite articles there are - as also in English - indefinite articles. In English there
is (as also applies to the definite article) only one indefinite article a(n). Spanish has two
because there is one needed for the feminine nouns and on for the masculine nouns.
Therefore there is una as indefinite article for feminine nouns and un for masculine ones.
Things get clearer when we play a mind game: A man who crosses the street is a friend of
my mother. This sentence means that all men that cross the street are friends of my mother.
And even if they had known my mother for 20 years they would not be friends unless they
cross the street. In comparison: The man who crosses the street is a friend of my
mother. This sentence seems quite clear. There is a man (one certain man) crossing the
street, and exactly this man is befriend with my mother.
Actually there are no differences in the logic of using the indefinite articles between the
Spanish and English. The only challenge here is to remember that for feminine nouns (the
ones with the ending -a) get una. The others get un.

el vaso = the glass

un vaso = a glass

la vaca = the cow

una vaca = a cow

There are also plural forms of indefinite articles unas and unos. They are translated as some and
also used the same way the little word some is used in English when meaning an indefinite
quantity of something that can be counted. For substances that can not be counted (sand, milk
or cream there is another word to be used in Spanish for meaning some. But we will get to this).

las paredes = the walls

unas paredes = some walls

los cuchillos = the knives

unos cuchillos = some knives

Let's have an overview on all the articles! Even though on first glance it seems a bit strange it's
not that difficult as you will see:

Definite article
SINGULAR

la feminine la casa house

la luna moon
la alegría pleasure
el* masculinel bolígrafo pen
e el paisaje landscape

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 el destino aim, destiny
PLURAL

las feminine las casas houses

las lunas moons
las alegrías pleasures
los masculine los bolígrafos pens
los paisajes landscapes
los regalos gifts
Indefinite article
SINGULAR

una feminine una casa a house

una luna a moon
una alegría a pleasure
un masculine un bolígrafo a pen
un paisaje a landscape
un destino a faith
PLURAL

unas feminine unas casas some houses

unas lunas some moons
unas alegrías some pleasures
unos masculine unos bolígrafos some pens
unos paisajes some landscapes
unos regalos some gifts
Please note the article el should not be mixed with the pronoun él. The pronoun always has an
accent.

Example:
él = he
él trabaja = he works
el hombre = (the) man
2.3 Exercise (formation of plural)

Form the plural for the following nouns (the gender is given with the definite
articles)
el caballo = horse
la cuchara = spoon
el encendedor = lighter
la cebolla = onion
la sartén = frying pan
la ciudad = town
el diente = tooth
el baño = bathroom

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 el zumo = juice

Excercise 2

el hombre el diente

la casa el baño

la zanahoria

la muchacha

el libro
la mesa
la botella
el cuaderno
la silla
la cocina
la torre
el coche

el tenedor

el animal

el alemán

el pez

el caballo

la cuchara

el encendedor

la cebolla

la sartén

la ciudad

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