What we already know?
In order to know what definite articles are, we need to do a quick review:
- Nouns are people, places and things.
- Adjectives are words that describe nouns. They have a gender and match in number or quantities. They can either be feminine or masculine. Usually nouns that end in -o are masculine and ones that end in -a are feminine. It’s not an absolute rule but a good rule to know.
Note: Nouns having gender is not something that is used in English, but don’t panic, we got this! Let’s review some examples as a refresher!
Definite Articles video lesson
Example(s):
| Noun | Feminine or Masculine | Singular or Plural | |
| mesa | mesa is feminine | mesa is singular | |
| mesas | mesas is feminine | mesas is plural | |
| carro | carro is masculine | carro is singular | |
| carros | carros is masculine | carros is plural |
What about nouns that do not end in -o or -a?
| Noun | Feminine or Masculine | Singular or Plural | |
| estudiante | Can be either feminine or masculine | estudiante is singular | |
| estudiantes | Can be either feminine or masculine | estudiantes is plural | |
| corazon | corazon is singular | ||
| corazones | corazones is plural |
Tip: These will just need to be memorized, there’s no ‘rule’ for these!
DEEP DIVE! What is the focus from this lesson?
We are going to learn how to say the feminine singular and feminine plural and the masculine singular and masculine plural.
Let’s look at this example together:
Me gusta _____ carro.
| Me | gusta | _____ | carro. |
| carro is singular and masculine |
| Me | gusta | el | carro. |
| el is the definite article | carro is singular and masculine |
Tip: Él (he) vs el (the) (check out the subject pronoun video)
Me gustan _____ carros.
| Me | gustan | _____ | carro. |
| carro is singular and masculine |
| Me | gustan | los | carros. |
| los is the definite article | carros is plural and masculine |
Me gusta _____ bicicleta.
| Me | gusta | _____ | bicicleta. |
| bicicleta is singular and feminine |
| Me | gusta | la | bicicleta is singular and feminine |
| el is the definite article | bicicleta is singular and feminine |
What are definite articles?
- So now we have learned that you have to choose between four definite articles: el, la, los and las.
- You select the correct definite article depending on the noun that it follows that can be either masculine or feminine (i.e. their gender)
Tip:
- In English, there is only one definite article: the.
- In English they can also be either singular or plural.
How about when it’s a noun that ends in something other than -o or -a?
| Noun | Feminine or Masculine | Singular or Plural | el
la los las |
| helado | Masculine | Singular | el |
| helados |
Tip: definite articles in English are ‘the’ (specific); indefinite articles in English are ‘a’ (not specific) (check out the indefinite article video)
RECALL: el helado de chocolate (the chocolate ice cream)
What did we learn?
- How to use nouns?
- How to make nouns singular or plural? If it ends in a vowel add-s. If it ends in a consonant add -es.
- How to determine if nouns are feminine or masculine? Most that end in -o are masculine. Most that end in -a are feminine. The others have to memorized.
- How to add definite articles to nouns? Basically ‘the’ in English or a specific item like the chocolate ice cream. There are 4 el, la, los and las.