Summary:
An overview on the articles (both definite and indefinite) and on the nouns and their inflections.
Articles
Articles are mostly words used with nouns to specify the grammatical definiteness of a noun. Definiteness gives a noun the characteristic of identifiability in a given context or discourse from other (non-definite) nouns. Despite being a feature common in most Western European languages, many do not have this feature, most notably Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Chinese, etc.
“Suddenly, we were approached by a stray dog. The dog looked ravenous.”
Definite Articles
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | El | Los |
| Feminine | La | Las |
Examples:
- “El perro” – “the dog”
- “Los gatos” – “the cat”
- “La mariposa” – “the butterfly”
- “Las casas” – “the houses”
Exception:
Feminine nouns that start with a stressed “a” vowel use the masculine definite article “el” instead of “la”.
Some examples are:
El agua <-> las aguas
El águila <-> las águilas
El aula <-> las aulas
If there is an adjective between the article and the noun, the article changes to the feminine one.
Example:
La mejor agua (the best water)
Indefinite Articles
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Un | Unos |
| Feminine | Una | Unas |
- “Un perro” – “a dog”
- “Una mariposa” – “a buttefly”
IMPORTANT: Bear in mind that in Spanish “un” and “uno” are not the same word. “Uno” is the number “one” and also an indefinite pronoun.
The plural form has the meaning in English as “some”:
“Unas mariposas” would then mean “some butterflies”
The same rule of exception can be applied to feminine nouns that start with a stressed “a” vowel: Un águila <-> unas águilas
Neutral Article “lo”
It is only used in abstractions such as:
“Lo bueno” – “The good”
“Lo malo” – “the bad”
It exists only in singular form!
Nouns
- As with the articles, there are two genders in Spanish: masculine and feminine. Spanish is highly regular in this respect and one can accurately guess the article of a noun according to is ending.
- Nouns that end in –a, –ción / –sión, -z and –ad are mostly feminine.
- All other nouns, which mostly end in –o, are masculine.
- Since Spanish has no neutral gender, non-living things and abstract concepts also take male and female genders.
- Proper names in Spanish follow also the general rule that those ending in –a are feminine and others ending in –o are masculine. Modern names may not follow this rule.
- Besides the gender, Spanish nouns are also inflected according to number (singular and plural).
- This is done mostly by adding an –s or –es at the end of the word.
Masculine Inflections
| -o | -e | -ma | -or | consonant | accented vowel | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | gato | perfume | idioma | amor | árbol | colibrí |
| Plural | gatos | perfumes | idiomas | amores | árboles | colibríes |
Feminine Inflections
| -a | -ad | -ción / -sión | -z | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | casa | libertad | canción | luz |
| Plural | casas | libertades | canciones | luces |
- Exceptions: as in all languages, Spanish presents exceptions to the above mentioned rules.
- Examples:
- La mano, la llave, la fé, la flor
- El día, el agrícola, el pez