Articles in Spanish

Reflect gender and number in nouns

Articles introduce the noun

The article will tell us a lot about the noun it is next to.

In Spanish we use articles much more than we do in English because nouns in Spanish have gender.

We learn the gender and the number of the noun by looking at the article.

The= el,la,los,las

The definite article “the” in English becomes four articles in Spanish because we must consider gender and number

El= singular masculine La = singular feminine Los = plural masculine Las = plural feminine

A, an= un,una, unos, unas

The indefinite article “a” or “an” turns into these in Spanish

Un= singular, masculine Una= singular, feminine Unos= plural masculine Unas= plural feminine

Accordance= agreement

The article and the noun must agree in number and in gender.

If the noun is feminine the article must be feminine

If the noun is masculine the article must be masculine

If the noun is plural (more than one) the article must be plural

How do we see accordance

singularUna amigaUn hermano El libro El díaLa calculadora

pluralunas amigasunos hermanoslos libroslos díaslas calculadoras