Page 60 Capítulo 2 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 * nouns that end in –ma and –pa are usually masculine and ones that end in –dad, -ción, 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.

Indefinite Articles Use definite articles to talk about a noun as a general category or when saying what you like with gustar. ¿Cómo es la pizza? Es deliciosa. Me gusta la pizza.

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