why does agua have a el in the front
i thought if it ends with an A the front is suppose to be la and la carne..isn't it suppose to be el carne??
6 Answers
I think you have received some good info above as to why it is 'el agua' but don't be caught out when you come to modify it.
Technically 'agua' is still feminine although it takes the masculine article.
So when you make it plural - you use 'las'
and when you modify it with adjectives you would use the feminine forms 
el agua peligrosa,
el agua roja etc.
Welcome to the forum Kat and King Kong. This is one of the most frequently asked questions here Kat and if you check out this link you'll find a lot of answers. Also, in the future, please proper capitalization as this is also an English learning site and it can be confusing to a Spanish native trying to learn our language.
El agua is an exception to the rule. Just like La mano. It can be confusing sometimes.
Apparently, someone did you a disservice in teaching you a simple rule (as opposed to a correct rule). There are actually two different "almost rules" that you seem to have been taught. 1) ending in 'a' means feminine and ending in 'o' means masculine (mostly true but by no means always) and 2) masculine nouns take 'el' as the definite article and feminine nouns take 'la' (again, mostly true but by no means always).
Earlier replies have provided some of the exceptions (so I won't repeat them). There are very few absolute rules in (human) languages. If you are troubled by ambiguity, then study artificial (especially computer programming) languages.
As a general rule, nouns ending in -a are feminine, and those ending in -o are masculine. However, like most rules, there are exceptions.
Many nouns ending in -ma are masculine. For example: el programa, el problema, el poema, and el idioma. Others you just have to memorize. For example: el sofá, el planeta, el día, and el mapa.
Similarly, there are feminine nouns that end in -o. For example: la radio and la mano.
It's just a matter of exceptions to the rules.
And with nouns ending in -e, they can usually be masculine or feminine. For example: el estudiante and la estudiante.
as to the el agua: this applies for alot of words in spanish and french too, when words begin with a vowel whether the word is feminine or not you must use the masculine article 'el'. por ejemplo, el aula.par exemple mon ecole. but most times this just for pronunciation sake so adjectives describing it still take the feminine form. though i dont think this applies in all cases. as to the la carne: most spanish words ending with e can either be feminine or masculine.for example adjectives ending in '-e' dont change whether the noun is feminine or masculine, there is actually a word that ends in'-e' that can carry either a feminine or masculine article. la pendiente means slope while el pendiente means earring. pendiente can also be an adverb meaning pending.
