We win! We have more articles than you…
En español (in Spanish), nouns are masculinos or femeninos. There are also neutral words, pero (but) we are not going to study them now. Masculine words tend to end in “-o” or “-e”, and feminine words in “-a”.
- Tomate (tomato) = masculine
- Perro (dog) = masculine
- Casa (house) = feminine
And what about los artículos? We use “el” for masculine names, and “la” for feminine ones:
- El tomate
- El perro
- La casa
Yes, I know, it is too easy to be true! Where’s the trick?
Well, hay (there are) indeed excepciones (exceptions) that we will have to remember, pero (but) if you use the rule, you will almost always be right.
Y (and) if you are wrong with the excepciones, nothing happens, los andaluces will understand you perfectly even if you put the wrong artículo.
De hecho (in fact), it always happens with foreigners, we are used to it and nothing happens. And also it happens to me when I speak French or German, but as long as people can understand me, I’m OK with it 😉.
Let’s see the most common of the excepciones.
La leche = the milk
La tarde = the evening
La carne = the meat
El día = the day
El agua = the water
La noche = the night
Got it? We’ll move forward, then.
Regarding how the plural of words is formed, it is also so easy que (that) you will not believe it.
To convert a palabra (word) to the plural, you must only add a “-s” to the end of it, if it ends in a vowel, or “-es” if it ends in a consonant (nouns ending in a consonant use to be masculine):
Tomate = tomates
Casa = casas
Perro = perros
Camión (truck) = camiones
Avión (plane) = aviones
¿Qué? What? Do you still not believe how fácil (easy) it is, right? Well, let’s continue: what happens to the artículos when names are in plural? “Los” is used for masculine names and “las” for feminine.
Los tomates
Los perros
Las casas
¡ATENCIÓN!
The plural of “el" is “los", not “les“
Have a look at this summary:
It would be great if you copy this in your cuaderno (notebook) including the ejemplos, as it will help you to retain it in your brain.
Now go and do los ejercicios de los artículos, gender and plural. They are very fácil (easy), I’m sure they will work out for you the first time, you’ll see. It is just to be sure that you have learned it.
You did it! ¡Bravo! Now you can continue your PLAN!