What is the difference between el and la in spanish

Notice the substitution of el for la takes place when it comes immediately before words starting with an "a" sound. If the feminine noun is modified by adjectives that follow the noun in the sentence, the feminine noun retains the masculine article.

The thing to remember is that words that are feminine remain feminine. The reason why this matters is if the word becomes plural, the word goes back to using the feminine definite article. In this case, the definite article becomes las. It sounds fine to say las arcas since the "s" in las breaks up the "double-a" sound.

Another example is las amas de casa. If a word intervenes between the definite article and the noun, la is used. If the accent of the noun is not on the first syllable, the definite article la is used with singular feminine nouns when they begin with a- or ha-. The substitution of el for la does not occur before adjectives that begin with a stressed a- or ha- , the rule only applies to nouns, despite the "double-a" sound.

There a few exceptions to the rule that el substitutes for la immediately before a noun that begins with a stressed a- or ha-. Note, the letters of the alphabet, called letras in Spanish, which is a feminine noun, are all feminine. Most grammarians consider it correct for feminine words to take the masculine indefinite article un instead of una under the same conditions where la is changed to el. It is for the same reason la is changed to el , to eliminate the "double-a" sound of the two words together.

Although this is widely considered correct grammar, this usage is not universal. In everyday spoken language, this rule is irrelevant, due to elision, which is the omission of sounds, especially as words flow together.

Maybe I've just asked the wrong ones, but I think it's like the fact that few native English speakers know why "pretty" becomes "prettier, prettiest", but "beautiful" becomes "more beautiful, most beautiful". Some will understand, many won't. For example hombre is man which is male.

However because a table mesa isn't really male or female you have to look at the ending a feminine ending 'la' is used. In Spanish nouns have gender. That is, they are divided into masculine and feminine. This distinction is simply a linguistic category and has nothing to do with male or female traits. Articles, adjectives, etc need to match the gender of the noun, always. El and la both mean "the". However, "el" is used with masculine nouns, and "la" is used with feminine nouns: el toro, la paraja, for example.

You just need to memorize for every noun if it is masculine or feminine gender. Consider the following examples:. After the long day, the cup of tea tasted particularly good. After a long day, a cup of tea tastes particularly good. The thing is that in Spanish every single noun has a gender: feminine or masculine.

If you have studied some Spanish you are painfully aware of this. Like nouns, articles in Spanish also have genders.

Articles in Spanish take on both the gender and the number of the noun. La mesa the table is feminine. El libro the book is masculine. You use la before feminine nouns and el before masculine nouns.

OK, it's a little more complicated than that. A female pilot is la piloto, and a male poet is el poeta. So here the article la or el depends on the person's gender, not just on the noun. I don't think you need to worry about that at this stage.

How do you know whether a noun is masculine or feminine? Look it up!