Old word for the day--nadar

Question

I have a question about the example from the July 25 word for the day, nadar. One of the example sentences was, "The water was so cold that we couldn't swim in it." This was translated as "El agua estaba tan fria que no pudimos nadar en ella." Since agua is "el agua", why wouldn't it be, "El agua estaba tan frio que no pudimos nadar en el."?

Good question, echoline, it took me forever to figure this out on my own. Perils of learning Spanish by yourself! - revmaf, Aug 4, 2010

Answer 1

Because agua is a feminine word that takes a masculine article when singular, and unmodified. (you do not use la agua).

frío (a) has a tilde on it to stress the "i" rather than the strong vowel of the diphthong.

cool, i just learned this! - Chavag, Aug 4, 2010

Thank you so much. I had forgotten that. - Echoline, Aug 4, 2010

Answer 2

Most feminine nouns that start with a stressed "a" or "ha", take the masculine, singular article when unmodified--it's not just this word.

Articles are "el", "la", "los", "las", "un", "una", "unos" and "unas".

Thank you, Calvo - Echoline, Aug 4, 2010

Answer 3

I agree with this "agua is a feminine noun, so adjectives and pronouns have to be feminine."

Answer 4

This gets asked a lot. You can search for why we use el with agua instead of la, but agua is a feminine noun, so adjectives and pronouns have to be feminine.

Thank you. I had forgotten... - Echoline, Aug 4, 2010