What is "las, la, and el"?

Question

i need ur help.. actually wat is las, la and el

why each word has different word and it is confusing me which i should choose???

Please use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation here as this is a teaching and learning website :) Thank you ! - Gocika, Sep 24, 2010

Answer 1

The definite areticles la, el, las, los all mean "the" in English. English only has one definite article and two different indefinite articles (a, an) Most English nouns do not show gender..book is neither masculine nor feminine. Pronouns (him, her, vary with sex, but that is not true gender).

Spanish, on the other hand, has four definite articles and 4 indefinite articles. They show agreement with the noun (nouns in Spanish have gender, they are either masculine, feminine and number: singular, plural) that they precede in both number and gender.

English

• the book
• the books
• a book
• an orange

Spanish

definite articles

• el libro (singular, masculine noun)=the book
• los libros (plural, masculine noun)=the books
• la casa (singular, feminine noun)=the house
• las casas (plural, feminine noun)=the houses

indefinite articles

• un libro=a book
• unos libros=some books
• una casa=a house
• unas casas=some houses

Answer 2

They are definite articles - ie. they mean 'the'

This reference work gives a very good explanation if you would like to learn more.

el, la, las & los

Answer 3

difficult too

You will notice the pattern and it will make sense to you as you progress in your studies. When you look in our dictionary it will tell you the gender of the word if it is a noun) - 0074b507, Sep 24, 2010