why is milk pronounced la leche instead of el leche

Question

I need to know why you say la leche instead of el leche?

• Bienvenido al foro. Welcome to the forum. - qfreed May 26, 2010

Answer 1

Hola overpar102, Welcome to SpanishDict!!

Leche is a feminine noun, therefore it needs the feminine article (la) not the masculine article (el).

Answer 2

Why it is feminine may have something to do with female animals (cows, nannies, etc. ) providing milk rather than their male counterparts (bulls, billies, etc.) Or the RAE flipped a coin.

Answer 3

It is a femine noun so therefore "la"

Answer 4

Feminine words can end in e. Masculine words can end in e, therefore you need to know the article (el or la) that goes with a particular word. Just to confuse, some words ending in "a" are masculine and have el instead of la e.g. el agua (water) Why??........don't know sorry.

Answer 5

Porque sí! Because it is! There´s no real reason, you just have to learn it. There are a few exceptions like this (la calle, for example) There is a reason why agua is preceeded by el, however. It´s not a masculine noun, but if a feminine noun starts with "a", you use "el" in the singular because otherwise it would be "la agua" which means there would be two "a"s together. We know it´s not masculine because in the plural it´s "las aguas" and not "los aguas."

• it has to begin with a stressed a. la abertura is a feminine noun beginning with "a", but doest not take a masculine article because the intial "a" is not stressed. - qfreed May 26, 2010

Answer 6

Maybe it's because el leche would have two ls next to each other??? I don't know if it's los leches or las leches in the plural, but that would answer the question.

• leche is an uncountable noun. 2 pails of milk, 2 glasses of milk, but not 2 milks. 2 milks would only refer to 2 brands or types of milk. Therefore, las leches is not very common. - qfreed May 26, 2010

Answer 7

Here we go again with the uncountable nouns. Q, I'm not arguing against your statement but thought I would bring up a past thread on this.

• Who ever said that we speak using correct grammar? I understand it when someone says "give me a beer", but that is only an abbreviated context that we have learned to use for bottle, glass, mug, etc. of beer. (it's implied). That does not prevent beer - qfreed May 26, 2010
• from being an uncountable noun. - qfreed May 26, 2010
• prescriptive/descritive... which is correct? How the rules state that something should be stated or how it is understood according to common usage? Arguments for both viewpoints. - qfreed May 26, 2010