Practical Spanish Grammar - Ch1 Grammar

Question 1

There are two indefinite articles in English: a and an, as in a book, an apple. In Spanish the indefinite articles are un (masculine), and una (feminine), as in un señor, una señora.

Question 2

Nouns referring to males are masculine, and nouns referring to females are feminine, as in un hombre, una mujer, un gato, una gata. The article tells a male from a female when the noun has the same spelling for males and females.

ex. un taxista (a male taxi driver); una taxista (a female taxi driver)

Question 3

Nouns referring to things are neuter in English (=it). In Spanish, they are either masc. or fem., and they take either un or una.

In this case, the gender of the noun has nothing to do with the idea of males or females; grammatical gender is merely a characteristic of all nouns in Spanish.

ex: una casa, un patio, un árbol, una pared

Question 4

The only way to predict the gender of an inatimate noun in Spanish is by looking at the final letter(s) of the word.

1. Nouns ending in L-O-N-E-R-S are almost always masculine (97 percent)
2. Nouns ending in D-IÓN-Z-A are almost always feminine (98 percent)
   exs: un papel, un libro, un tren, un garaje, un color, un lunes, un paraguas

Una pared, una leccíon, una luz, una nariz, una mesa

Question 5

There are important exceptions to these two rules, and they should be memorized when you learn new words.

1. Some nouns ending in -ma are masc. rather than fem.

ex: un problema, un tema, un programa, un dilema, un drama, un poema

2. The following nouns are other important exceptions.

una calle (a street), una clase, una llave, una mano

una muerte, una noche, una suerte, una tarde

un avión, un camión (a truck), un día, un lápiz

Question 6

A. In English there is only one definite article: the. In Spanish there are four: el/la (masc./fem. singular) and los/las (masc. fem. plural).

These articles agree in gender and number with the nouns they precede.