masculine vs feminine
why do you say "el agua" instead of " la agua" being that agua is feminine?
3 Answers
it's hard to distinguish the sounds when a word ends with the same vowel that the next word starts with
It's a little more complicated than that, but it is to aid pronunciation.
The feminine word must begin with "a" or "ha" and have the first syllable stressed. If the stress is on a subsequent syllable the feminine definite article is used like normal. Also if there is an intervening word the feminine definite article is used.
el hache
la segunda hache (notice we are back to a...ha, but this time the first "a" (from segunda) is not stressed, so you don't have a stessed "a" (from la) followed by a stressed "ha" (from hache.) It's when there are two stressed "a" 's in succession that it is hard to pronounce.
It's to make it easier to understand. In Spanish, it's hard to distinguish the sounds when a word ends with the same vowel that the next word starts with. If you were to say "la agua" it would sound like "lagua" which isn't quite right.
And it is not all. These spanish speakers are mad. Did You know that the "sea" can be referred as male or female?.
La mar or El mar.
No way.
