Introduction to Spanish Articles

In Spanish, every noun has an article. There are two types of articles: masculine and feminine. That means a spanish noun is either feminine or masculine. Therefore, when we learn a spanish noun, we have to learn its article as well. The masculine article is called "el" and the feminine article is called "la". In most cases, we have to memorize the article, that means there is no way to guess if it is a feminine word or a masculine word. On the other hand, in some cases there are rules we can rely on to guess the correct gender:

1. The nouns which end with "o" are 99% masculine: el libro, el monumento
2. The nouns which end with "a" are 99% feminine: la mesa, la fiesta

There are some exceptions to points 1&2. Examples:

• la mano, la radio, la foto, la moto
• el clima, el idioma, el planeta

If the word ends with "ema"  its article is most probably "el", not "la"

• el tema, el problema, el sistema

    3.  The nouns which end with "sión" and "ción" are feminine: la tradición, la televisión

    4.  The nouns which end with "dad" are feminine: la cantidad, la universidad   

    5.  The nouns which end with "or" are generally masculine: el señor, el profesor. This is expected, because the words ending with "or" are mostly used in order to describe professions for males (el pescador, el director etc.). For a woman, you would for example say "la  profesora". I will write an article on the desciption of professions in Spanish very soon.

And, of course, if the natural gender is male, then the article is "el" and if it is female, the article is "la". Examples:

• el niño (boyfriend) & la niña (girlfriend)
• el padre (father) & la madre (mother)

In Spanish there are many words which end with "e". If a noun ends with "e", unfortunately there is no rule whether its article is feminine or masculine.

Plural Form

The articles "el" and "la" are used for the singular forms of the nouns. In the plural form, "el" becomes "los" and "la" becomes "las":

• el niño (boy friend), los niños (boy friends)
• la mesa (table), las mesas (tables)