Unidad 3: Mis planes
1. Aprendamos los conceptos del género y número
As you recall, all Spanish words are feminine, masculine or neuter and do not rely a person’s biological gender to indicate the word’s gender. Another important characteristic of Spanish is that the articles work hand-in-hand with the noun to which it belongs–matching the noun’s gender and number. Spanish has some rules to know the gender of the nouns, but to make it simple for you, each time that you study a new Spanish word, learn the word with the article.
When we have the definite article of a Spanish word, we know the gender of the word and the number of the word.
In this case the word “El libro” is masculine and singular.
To express a noun in plural is very simple; if the word ends in a vowel we only attach an S like in English:
El libro (singular) = Los libros→(plural).
El día (singular) = Los días→(plural).
When the Spanish word ends in a consonant, we attach an ES:
La televisión = Las televisiones→(plural).
Did you notice the accent is not necessary in the plural? The stress naturally falls on the “o” in the second to the last syllable. This follows stress rule #1 for words ending in vowels, n or s, the natural stress is on the penultimate syllable and thus no longer requires the orthographic stress.
Los artículos definidos:
| Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | el | → | los |
| Feminine | la | → | las |
Los Nombres-Nouns:
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
| If a noun ends in “o” → El perro | Add “s” → Los perros |
| If a noun ends in “a” → La pluma | Add “s” → Las plumas |
| If a noun ends in a consonant → la nación | Add “es” → Las naciones |
