Articles before nouns in Spanish
Written by: Monica
Teaching has always been my passion and not my job. Over the last 15 years, I have taught a wide variety of age -groups, and levels, but my commitment has been always aimed at maximizing every student’s performance and making the learning process less challenging and more enjoyable. Therefore, my students learn how to perform in the four skills through a wide range of dynamic activities related to everyday situations and not through infinite doses of theory and memorization. I strongly believe in teaching as a tool to create and innovate, being my main goal, to offer a meaningful experience over the journey in which learning happens inadvertently.
Today’s main characters are nouns. But what should we know about them? In Spanish, when we use nouns we need to consider the gender. It means that depending on the vowel at the end, they should be used with specific articles like “la” or “el” if the word is feminine or masculine respectively. So, what’s the rule? Generally, nouns that end in “a” are feminine, and nouns that end with “o” are masculine. Here are some examples:
Casa – house – “La casa”
Ordenador – computer – “El ordenador”
However, there are some exceptions very common in spoken Spanish which don’t follow this rule. Let’s study some of them:
Clima – weather
clima ends in “a” – but should be used with the article “El”
So we say “El clima” and not “La clima”
What about Poet?
Poeta – poet
we say “El poeta” and, not “La poeta”
And finally, the word agua which means water.
we say “El agua” and not “La agua”
Do you any other examples? Please comment below and try your best to surprise your friends.
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