los vs las

Question

I noticed in lesson 1:12 that "los" and "las" are used, I was wondering are these used only for specific words, for example; Los zapatos and Las botas, what are the rules for using these? I know they are used when a plural form of a word is used, and is there an easy way to keep them straight?

Answer 1

Hello, and welcome to the forum. Los and las are the plural articles in Spanish; the plural versions of el and la. 'S' makes things plural in Spanish just like in English, it should be pretty easy to remember that las is the plural of la. Then you just have to remember that los is the plural of el. It may help in remembering this to think about how the letter 'O' is a masculine ending in Spanish. They are required in front of plurals just like the singular articles (el and la) are required in front of singular nouns. Does this answer your question?

Thank-you for your help and after I posted the question I looked over some of the words and realized that los/las were the plural forms for masculine/feminine. Muchas Gracias - jntjones, Aug 6, 2010

You're welcome. I'm glad you figured it out. - MacFadden, Aug 6, 2010

Answer 2

Los is masculine plural.

Las if feminine plural.