Which one is correct please?

Question

El agua pura El agua puro La pura agua El puro agua

Answer 1

El agua pura. Agua is femenine, so pura has to be femenine. Normally you'd use la with a femenine noun, but agua starts with a stressed "a", so you switch to el. Typically, but not always, adjectives follow nouns. Sometimes they can precede the noun, but this usually changes the meaning of the phrase.

Answer 2

KevinB is correct here, but viajero brings up an interesting point:

"El agua pura/purificada" is correct for "Bottled drinking water."

"La pura agua" is correct for "Water with no ingredients added," or "just water." (ie: Quiero la pura agua, nada más....I want just the water, nothing more)

But "La pura agua" is incorrect.

Yes, the position of the adjective changes the meaning of the phrase. - KevinB, JUL 18, 2010

Answer 3

Kevin B is right. I am almost wrong

Water ( in Spanish) is femenine but, because sounds weird to say la agua, se dice el agua. In other words is not good to have a word start with the same letter of the last word. La agua.

However one can say las aguas y no los aguas,why" because in this case aguas makes it a plural. And,then the word goes back to its regular use. Las aguas, las águilas .

Yes. The reason for the switch in the singular is that la agua would have 2 stressed "a" sounds next to each other. That's hard to say, and they would blur together. When it's plural you use "las", so the "a" sounds aren't next to each other. - KevinB, JUL 18, 2010

Answer 4

El agua pura........ pure water but the article el is not correct

El agua puro...... water is given a female gender for what ever reason, so it is pura not puro

La pura agua ...this means the real water.

This is correct, la agua pura” pure water.

El agua is correct. If a singular femenine nouns starts with a stressed "a" or "ha" sound, you use "el" instead of "la". - KevinB, JUL 18, 2010