Articles in Spanish



A noun is a word used to denote a person, place, thing, or idea. Write 3 examples of each type of noun:

Person: _______________________________________________________

Place: _______________________________________________________

Thing: _______________________________________________________

Idea: _______________________________________________________

In Spanish, all nouns are either _________________ or ____________________. Many times, you can identify if a word is ____________________ or ____________________ by the ending of the word. Words that end with _______ are usually ________________, and words that end in ___________ are usually _______________________.

|Masculine |Feminine |

|el chico |la chica |

|________________________________ |_______________________________ |

|El abuelo |La abuela |

|________________________________ |_______________________________ |

|el libro |la revista |

|book |magazine |

|El hijo |La hija |

|________________________________ |________________________________ |

The idea that nouns have _______________ seems perfectly natural when the noun stands for a ________________ creature. This is because in English, living creatures often have different names, depending upon whether they are _____________ or __________________.

English Examples:

| | |

|man |woman |

|tiger |tigress |

|aviator |aviatrix |

| | |

Write another English example in the blank space. __________________________

The following Spanish nouns all denote living creatures.

|el gato |la gata |

|male cat |female cat |

|El hermano |La hermana |

|_________________________________ |_______________________________ |

|el chico |la chica |

|_________________________________ |_______________________________ |

|el amigo |la amiga |

|_________________________________ |_______________________________ |

How are all of these masculine nouns alike?

el gato

el hermano

el chico

el amigo

How are all of these feminine nouns alike?

la gata

la hermana

la chica

Not all words that end in “o” are masculine, and not all words that end in “a” are feminine. Can you think of a word that we have learned in our greetings last week that ends in an “a” but is masculine?

Articles Continued

"El" and "la" both mean "the."

el chico (the boy)

la chica (the girl)

El Niño (little girl)

La Niña (little boy)

Note: ______________ and ______________ are called "definite articles."

A definite article is ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

An Indefinite article is:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

What is the difference between Definite and indefinite articles?

Definite articles describe a ______________________ thing.

Example: give me ________________ book

Indefinite articles are _____________________ about what they label.

Example: give me ________________ book

It doesn’t say which book! It just says __________ book!

Gender In Spanish

One cannot predict the _____________ of a noun that stands for a non-living thing. Try to predict whether the Spanish words for the following things are ______________ or ____________:

book ____________________

house ____________________

money ____________________

window ____________________

One _______________ predict the ____________________ of a noun, except in the case of ______________________ creatures. Do not try to analyze the nature of the object, looking for some inherent masculinity or femininity. It won't work!

Take a guess. Do you think the Spanish word for "dress" is ____________________ or __________________?

___________________ vestido

Take another guess. Do you think the Spanish word for "necktie" is masculine or feminine?

_____________________ corbata

[pic]

When you learn a new noun, you should also learn its definite article (el, la). There are several reasons for this:

• Because you cannot _________________ the _________________ of most _________________.

• Because not every _________________ that ends in __________ is ____________________, and not every ___________________ that ends in ___________ is _____________________.

• Because many ________________ end in ________________ other than o or a.

• Because the definite article (el, la) is your ____________________ as to whether a ____________________is ______________________ or __________________.

Why do you care whether a noun is masculine or feminine? Good question! As you shall see in upcoming lessons, Spanish places a great deal more emphasis on gender than does English.

Hints

Masculine nouns that end in a consonant often have a corresponding _______________ that ends in __________________.

Examples:

el profesor

la ____________________

el doctor

la ____________________

el señor

la ____________________

Some nouns that refer to people use the ____________ form for __________ masculine and feminine. These nouns indicate _________________ by the article (el or la).

el estudiante

______ estudiante

_____ pianista

la pianista

el artista

______ artista

Nouns that end in -sión, -ción, -dad, -tad, -tud, -umbre are ___________________.

Examples:

Some nouns that end in ________ are _________________.

Examples:

Many nouns that end in _______ are ____________________. Notice that _________ of the ______________ nouns listed above end in -ma.

More examples:

Note: A few nouns that end in ____________ are ________________, such as _____________ and __________________. That’s why it’s helpful to memorize the article when you memorize the words!

Four of the nouns that end in ________ are masculine. These words are simply exceptions and must be memorized.

A few nouns that end in ____________ are feminine.

All about Articles

You now know most of the rules for determining the ______________ of a noun. Whenever you learn a new ______________, learn it complete with its _______________ article (___, _____). ______________ articles are the subject of what we will read about today.

In Spanish, not just people, but __________________ in creation has _______________________!

When you refer to people and animals, understanding gender use in Spanish is easy because ________________ is a part of their essence — just as with flowers; everyone knows that flowers are pollinated, needing both genders to produce fruit and seeds.

So why not refer to all things that grow with names that are marked by gender? And if things that grow have gender, why not give everything (and every word) that privilege? Many languages spread this gender thing into their universe. English isn't the only exception — it simply belongs to those languages that don't.

A noun's _______________ conditions everything around it, just as your own gender conditions your lifestyle. For example, in English, the word "piano" has no gender. But in Spanish, the word piano (pee-ah-noh) ends in an o, and can therefore only be _____________________. Consequently, piano has a male definite article before it ________ piano, (ehl pee-ah-noh) (the piano).

Lots about articles

In English, you use the articles the and a or an without knowing the subject's gender, or even caring whether a _____________ or __________________ word comes after it — very comfortable, but also very vague. However, with Spanish _____________________, you can point out when you're referring to _________________ or several specific beings or things, and in the same breath, you can specify their ___________________.

_______________________________________________________________

• el (ehl) (the male the, singular) OR

• la (lah) (the female the, singular)

• los (lohs) (the male the, plural)

• las (lahs) (the female the, plural)

And, four ways to say a or an:

• un (oon) (the male a or an) OR

• una (oo-nah) (the female a or an)

• unos (oo-nohs) (the plural of un)

• unas (oo-nahs) (the plural of una)

________________________________________________________________________

So how do you know when to use which article? It's easy. When the noun ends in ______ — it's usually _____________. If a word ends in _____, it's usually _______________. If the word ends in another letter, you may have a bit of trouble figuring out which gender it is. The easy part to remember is that when you see an "_____________" at the ______________ of the word, you know the word is __________________. Here are some examples:

• el niño ________________________________________________

• los niños ________________________________________________

un niño ________________________________________________

unos niños ________________________________________________

• la niña ________________________________________________

• las niñas ________________________________________________

una niña ________________________________________________

unas niñas ________________________________________________

| |Look at the los niños entry in the preceding list and notice that the translation is plural for both "the boys" and "the |

| |children." When you have mixed company (both the male and females genders are present), you use the ___________________ plural |

| |article. So los niños can mean "_____________" or "_______________ and ______________." You follow the same pattern with |

| |______________. |

Plurals: How do I make a word plural?

Usually, to make a word plural in Spanish, you: add an ___________ to the end of the word!

However, if a noun ends a _________________, before adding the s to turn it into a plural, Spanish inserts an e. Following are some examples:

Examples:

................
................

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