Spanish Articles

In Spanish we have two kinds of articles:

• Indefinite articles (a, an, some)

• Definite articles (the)

All nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine. They have gender.

You should always MEMORIZE the article that goes with the noun. This will always tell you whether the noun is masculine or feminine.

Spanish Definite Articles

Singular Plural

Masculine

Feminine

How can you tell if a noun is

masculine or feminine?

MASCULINE

Nouns that end in “o” are generally masculine.

• el chico

• el libro

• el nacho

FEMININE

• Nouns that end in “a”, “cion”, “sion”, or “dad” are generally feminine.

• la pizarra• la educacion• la mision• la posiblidad

There are always exceptions to the rules.

Here are just a few exceptions:

El dia

El programa

La noche

The special exceptions you definitely have to MEMORIZE!!!!

PLURAL NOUNS

• To make nouns plural, we usually just add an “s” to the end of the word.

• El chico – los chicos• La chica – las chicas

• Don’t forget to make the definite article plural as well as your noun!

•To make nouns plural that end in a consonant, we add “es” to the end of the word.

•El papel – los papeles

•El reloj – los relojes

•La pared – las paredes

To make nouns plural that end in a “z”, we drop the z and add “ces”

•El lapiz – los lapices

It may be necessary to add or remove an accent mark when making a plural noun.

• el examen becomes los examenes

•La leccion becomes las lecciones