El and La – What are they?
Introduction Remember that in greetings, males say “encantado” and girls say “encantada” to mean delighted? Words ending with “o” are masculine and words ending with “a” are feminine. Lets expand this!
El and La “el” and “la” are Spanish articles that are placed before some nouns and words. El is the masculine article. La is the feminine article. Words ending with “a” will always have the feminine article “la” in front of the word. Words ending with any other letter will almost always have the masculine article “el” in front of the word. However, there are some rule breakers!
Application Now let us see how this plays out in our next lesson in learning about how to say the different parts of the body ion Spanish.
The Body
La cabeza Head
La nariz Nose
El brazo Arm
(Los dedos = fingers/toes) El dedo Finger (Los dedos = fingers/toes)
La mano Hand
El estómago Stomach
Whoa! That’s a Cognate! Cognates are words in Spanish that look like and sound like the English word. El estómago = Stomach
El pie Foot
La pierna Leg
La boca Mouth
El ojo Eye