Quote:
Originally Posted by pjt33
El is used with feminine nouns which begin with a stressed a. "El agua" is probably the most commonly used example. For an example where the stress has to be indicated with an accent, consider el águila.
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I get it perfectly. I was aware of the
el requirement before nouns that begin with the accented
a, but it never occurred to me that the nouns had to be only "stressed" to require the
el as well. Very clear. Thank you. :>)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusty
This is akin to why we have two pronunciations for the word 'the' in English. If the following word begins with a vowel sound, we pronounce it as if it were written 'thee'. Likewise, the English word 'a' becomes 'an' if the following word begins with a vowel sound. In Spanish, the rule is 'if the immediately following feminine word begins with a stressed 'a' sound, the singular definite article 'el' and the singular indefinite article 'un' are used. The feminine plural articles are used, however.
el/un agua
las/unas aguas
el/un águila
las/unas águilas
el/un hacha
las/unas hachas
An extension of the rule states that compound words that begin with any of the words that fall under this category are also treated the same way, even though the 'a' sound is not stressed.
el/un avemaría
el/un aguamarina
There are words that are excluded from the rule - all proper names, names that denote a female person or animal, and letters of the alphabet.
la a
la hache
la Ana
La Haya
la árabe (a female Arab, as opposed to el árabe (a male Arab))
la ánade
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I am glad that I asked this question. I was going to just accept it--when I came across
el aula, nf, in my current lesson plan. Just memorize it, that is.
I read a rule recently that all compound nouns require the masculine definite and indefinite articles. I was thinking of
el abrelatas and
el paraguas when I read the rule
. But your examples of
el/un avemaría and el/un
aguamarina clear up any confusion about "
a" words that I may have in the future.
Your list of exceptions-to-the-rule are interesting because I have memorized some of them already. But now, I know why they are the way they are! Very nice, you've made my day.