First of all, what is a definite article? In English this is the word THE. We use this word in Spanish to modify nouns as well, but you will see they work a little differently.
In English we can say things like “the boy”, “the girl”, “the boys” and “the girls”. See how the word “the” never changed? In Spanish you will notice that we have to change definite article to match in both gender and number with the noun it is modifying.
In the chart below, you can see that there are different ways to say “the” based on whether the noun is singular or plural, masculine or feminine.
Being able to master correct article usage will help your Spanish sound more natural and coherent. Native speakers could understand what you are saying if you make a mistake, yet sometimes words can change meaning dependent on their gender and plurality.
Let’s take a look at the chart below to understand gender and plurality in Spanish. **note: there are words that we call “irregulars” that do not follow the general gender and/or number rules. For more information on this topic, see our modules regarding gender and plurality in Spanish.
Spanish |
English |
El |
the (singular, masculine) |
La |
the (singular, feminine) |
Los |
the (plural, masculine) |
Las |
the (plural, feminine) |
In English, a speaker can say: The dog eats meat.
The article, in this case, is “the”. This shows that when you are speaking of the dog, you have a specific dog in mind. The same rule applies to Spanish when using the definite article.
Take a look at the examples of gender and number agreement below:
El niño - The boy
|
La niña - The girl
|
Los niños - The boys
|
Las niñas - The girls
|
El hombre - The man
|
La mujer - The woman
|
Los hombres - The men
|
Las mujeres - The women
|