Using La and El

Question

Why do you use La for Sopa but El for Aqua? I thought you would use La.

Answer 1

Schub didn't quite finish her thought.

El is employed because when you have the letter combinations of la...a. The two vowels are run together or hard to distinguish so Spanish switched from la to el. It only happens with words where the a (or ha) in the 1st syllable is stressed. El hacha, el águila, etc. The word is still feminine so the plural would be las aguas or if there is an intervening word to break up the la.. a combination the la is used la fresca agua Notice that you are back to the a...a situation but here the first a (fresca) is not stressed so it remains unchanged. In the la..a(gua) both a's are stressed.

We have many previous threads on this topic if you wish to research further.

Answer 2

Thanks for the replies. Think I understand it now.

Answer 3

Agua is femine, but starts with an "a", so el is used instead.

? - Nathaniel, Sep 8, 2009

Answer 4

That's quite confusing...?

You only have to remember that the reason for switching from la to el is because of pronunciation. There aren't many feminine words that it occurs with. - - 0074b507, Sep 8, 2009

Answer 5

Welcome to the forum, wolf, yes, you are right, this is rather confusing. Read about this making a search:

el agua