Nouns and definite articles

NOUNS (Sustantivos) Nouns refer to people, animals, places, and things.

NOUNS (Sustantivos) In Spanish, nouns have gender. They are either masculine or feminine.

Masculine / Feminine Most nouns that end in -o are masculine.

Masculine / Feminine Most nouns that end in -a are feminine.

Masculine / Feminine For example: el libro la pizza An exception: el día

Feminine Nouns that end in dad, tad, tud, ción, gión and sión are usually feminine

Other Spanish Nouns Other Spanish nouns end in -e or a consonant.

Other Spanish Nouns For example: el ajedrez el marcador la clase la televisión

Other Spanish Nouns Some can be both masculine and feminine: el/la estudiante

Making Nouns Plural To make nouns plural you usually add -s to words ending in a vowel and -es to words ending in a consonant. estudianteestudiantes animalanimales

Definite Articles (Artículos definidos) El, La, Los and Las are called definite articles. In English they mean “the”

Definite Articles (Artículos definidos) We use El and Los with masculine nouns and La and Las with feminine nouns.

Feminine singular to plural la pizza las pizzas the pizza the pizzas

Masculine singular to plural el huevo los huevos the egg the eggs

It’s a good idea to learn a noun with its definite article, el or la, because that will usually tell you the gender.

PRACTICAMOS: Which article, el or la? 1. ____ casa 6. _____ d í a 2. ____ hermano 7. _____ ciudad 3. ____ abuelo 8. _____ vaso 4. ____ libro9. _____ perro 5. ____ cancion10. ____ almohada