Gender, Articles & Contractions
Every noun is either masculine or feminine and the articles and adjectives used with the nouns must match the noun in gender (masculine/feminine) and in number (singular/plural).
To help you remember if a word is masculine or feminine remember to look at the end of the word and use these mnemonic devices to help you determine the gender:
There are some “Weird words” which don’t follow the “loner/diónza” pattern. There are more.
ARTICLES
MASCULINE FEMININE
DEFINITE el la
los* THE las*
*used with plural
nouns
INDEFINITE un A, AN una
unos* SOME unas*
USE OF DEFINITE ARTICLES
The definite article is used with days of the week to mean “on.”
EX: el martes = on Tuesday los viernes = on Fridays
The definite article is used when talking ABOUT someone with a title, but not when talking directly TO that person.
EX: Buenos días, señor Díaz. ¿Cómo está Ud.?
EX: La profesora Vargas no está en la escuela hoy.
The definite article is used when talking about nouns in a GENERAL sense.
EX: Cars are fast. (cars in general) = LOS carros son rápidos.
Contractions
v There are only TWO contractions in Spanish.
v The two contractions are REQUIRED, not optional, even in formal speech.
v There is no apostrophe in a Spanish contraction, unlike in English.
a + el = al “A” when followed by “EL” MUST contract to form “AL”.
de + el = del “DE” when followed by “EL” MUST CONTRACT TO FORM “DEL”.
DO NOT CONTRACT DE OR A WITH ANY OTHER DEFINITE ARTICLE.
(de la, de los, de las AND a la, a los, a las)
DO NOT CONTRACT DE OR A FOLLOWED BY ÉL.
(de él and a él)
Making nouns plural
1. nouns that end in a vowel: add –s
2. nouns that end in a consonant: add –es
3. nouns that end in –z: change –z to –c and add –es
4. nouns that end with an N or S and have an accent mark on the last syllable:
Add –es and drop the accent mark
5. nouns that end in –as, -es, -is, -os: do not change; only the article is made plura