Spanish Articles

SPANISH ARTICLES
Articles are words like "the", "a", or "an". They are used with nouns. They give us some extra information about the noun. If I say "the dog", you I assume that you know which one I am talking about. If I say "a dog" it seems like I don't think you have a particular one in mind, and perhaps it could be just any dog, such as "John is going to buy a dog". In this sentence we certainly don't have any idea which one he is going to buy, and perhaps we haven't ever seen whichever one he is going to buy. If, on the other hand, I say "John is going to buy the dog", it appears that we have discussed this before and I know that you are aware of which dog I am discussing. "The" is called the DEFINITE article, because it points out a definite thing, a particular one. "A" and "an" are called the INDEFINITE articles, because they do not point any particular one. It could be any one. At least, you, the listener, are not aware of which one I might mean.

In the lesson about noun categories we saw that in English there are two groups of nouns. The indefinite articles must be used with this in mind. If someone is learning English he must be aware that you use "a" with nouns that begin with a consonant, and "an" with nouns that begin with a vowel. In Spanish we have two categories also. "Un" is used with nouns of the "O" category, and "una" is used with nouns of the "A" category. You have probably noticed that these two words are really forms of the number "one" which is "uno" in Spanish. You would say, "una casa", "una revista", "una naranja", etc. When the noun ends in the letter "a", you must use the article that matches. For nouns that do not end in "a", but which are counted in the "a compatible" group, you do the same. You would say "una clase", "una fuente", "una ciudad", "una explicacion", etc. If you don't remember about these nouns which don't end in "a", but count as "a compatible" nouns, you might want to read about them in the NOUN lesson. You would use "un" with nouns that end in "o", and also with nouns that are in the "o compatible" group. For example, you would say, "un libro", "un perro", "un guante", "un puente", etc.

The definite article may be a little more difficult to get used to in Spanish for English speakers. That is because with the word "the", we are not used to having to make a choice. For example, even though we must change from "a" to "an", according to the noun that is used, ("a house" but "an apple", when we use "the" we find that it works with both categories. "The" sounds OK with both "house" and with "apple". In Spanish, on the other hand, we have two categories of nouns, and we have to match the proper form of the word "the". The two words in Spanish are "el" and "la". "El" is used with "O" category nouns, and "la" is used with "A" category nouns. We would say, "el libro" but we would say "la revista". In addition, in the case of "the" in Spanish we also have plural forms when we are talking about more than one thing. The plural form of "la" is "las". That means that we would say, "la casa", but we would say "las casas". You may think that this is odd, because the "s" on the noun seems to be enough to indicate that we are using a plural form. The article "las" seems to be repeating the idea of plurality. This repetition, which is very common in all languages, is called "redundancy". It occurs in English also, but we are used to hearing it, so we hardly notice it. Notice that with the words "this" and "these", we feel the need to match in English. When talking about one book, you would say, "this book", but if we talk about several books, we would not say "this books" but rather "these books". If someone said, "this books" in English, we would notice immediately that the person was not a native speaker of English, because it just doesn't sound right to us. The same thing is true with "la" and "las" in Spanish. If you said, "la casas", any Mexican would probably understand what you are trying to say, but he would notice that it just didn't sound right. That's what we generally mean when we say the "correct" form. It's the form which sounds right to people who speak the language as natives.

In the case of the "O" category nouns, we also have a plural form. We would say "el libro" but when we talk of several books, we would say, "los libros". "El" just doesn't sound right to someone from Latin America who speaks Spanish when we are using a plural noun. "Los" is the plural form of "el". That gives us a chart which we can use to help remember the proper forms for the word "the" in Spanish.