Articles, Gender, and more

^{Articles, Gender, and more}

Definite & indefinite articles

Definite articles:

• Are used to identify specific (known) items

• translate into the word "the" in English

• have singular and plural forms

DEFINITE ARTICLES

el, la, los, las

DEFINITE ARTICLES (cont'd)

• Are used with masculine and feminine nouns

• Follow the rules of agreement in Spanish

Rules of Agreement

• All nouns and articles must agree with each other in gender and in number

• In most cases... the letter the noun ends with determines its gender and whether the masculine article or the feminine article is used

• Let's do some practice and see how you do

Nouns in Spanish:

• Most nouns that end in the letter -o are masculine and get the masculine article

• Most nouns that end in the letter -a are feminine and get the feminine article

• There are exceptions to the rules, however...don't worry about them right away! :-)

Fill in the Blanks

the house =

casa

Fill in the Blanks

the boy =

chico

Fill in the Blanks

the computer =

computadora

Fill in the Blanks

the notebook =

cuaderno

INDEFINITE ARTICLES:

• Follow the same rules as the definite articles

• Translate into the words "a", "an", or "some" in English

• Refer to an indefinite (unknown or uncertain) number of items

Fill in the Blanks

a house =

casa

Fill in the Blanks

a boy =

chico

Fill in the Blanks

a computer =

computadora

Fill in the Blanks

a notebook =

cuaderno

INDEFINITE ARTICLES (Plurals)

• As the noun becomes plural, so does the indefinite article

• Refer to the chart on Slide 4 for further clarification

Fill in the Blanks

some houses =

casas

Fill in the Blanks

some boys =

chicos

Fill in the Blanks

some computers =

computadoras

Remember...

• If the noun ends in a vowel (A, E, O), we simply add -s to make it plural

• If the noun ends in a consonant (D, J, L, N, R), we simply add -es to make it plural

• For exceptions, you can identify the gender of the noun by looking at the article assigned to the word

• There are not a lot of exceptions but they do have to be memorized

• Be careful making exception words plural as the article and the noun are two separate genders!