These are some basic rules of Spanish that you will not understand unless they are said right here.
● All nouns in Spanish are either male or female. Usually, male nouns will end in -dor, -o, or -e, and female nouns will end in -a, -idad, or -ion. All female and male nouns have respective articles (an article is a word like "a" or "the" in English).
Definitive articles (the):
- A singular male noun's definitive article is el. For example: El perro means the dog.
- A singular female noun's definitive article is la. For example: La lámpara means the lamp.
- A plural male noun's definitive article is los. For example: Los perros means the dogs.
- A plural female noun's definitive article is las. For example: Las lámparas means the lamps.
Nonspecific articles (a, an):
- Male nouns use un to say a or an. For example: Un perro means a dog.
- Female nouns use una to say a or an. For example: Una lámpara means a lamp.
Additional Gender Notes:
- To change a noun from male to female, simply change the -o or -e suffix to -a. However, some nouns do not change gender because they are gender neutral in nature (ex. you wouldn't say "a female lamp" or "a male lamp").
- If there are both male and female in nature nouns (ex. both girl and boy dogs), the noun is always plural and masculine.
● Singulars and Plurals:
- If a noun ends in a consonant, add -es to make it plural. If it ends in a vowel, simply add -s.
● Accents, Spelling, and Pronunciation:
- Accents do not affect pronunciation. However, they do affect meaning. Él with an accent mark means He in Spanish. El without the accent mark means the for a singular masculine noun. Accent marks are also used to indicate stressed syllables on a word. For example, Ojalá is pronounced [oh-ha-LA], not [oh-HA-la].