Spanish Indefinite Articles

It is a well-known fact that in Spanish there are two types of articles: definite and indefinite articles. The article always goes next to a noun (except in proper names), and always carries the same gender and number as the noun. The indefinite article is used to refer to a non-specific item. It also follows the gender-number rule. There are four forms for the indefinite article in Spanish: un, una, unos, unas.

When we use indefinite articles in English we are using the words “a”, “an”, or “some”. We use these when we don’t have a specific object in mind but rather a more general idea. For example, “I want an apple for snack” rather than “I want the red apple in the bowl for snack”.

In Spanish we use indefinite articles too! But, just like with the definite articles in the previous module (Definite Articles Module), these indefinite articles will also need to agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. The Spanish indefinite articles are un, una, unos, and unas.

In Spanish the indefinite article word order is just like English – the article will come directly before the noun it modifies. See the chart below that breaks down these articles in gender and number:

Now let’s see how these indefinite articles work when paired with a noun: