is aguA feminine or masculine?
it is said that words that ends with -a are feminine but why then is "agua" el agua? EL is the article for masculine right? so is it supposed to be la agua?!
Estoy confundida! Socorro! :(
5 Answers
..........................El Agua not La Agua...................................
This is taken from our own Span¡shD!ct Reference page in re Definite Articles:
Exceptions
When a feminine and singular noun begins with a stressed á or ha, the masculine definite article is used instead to aid in pronunciation. When the same noun is plural, the regular feminine article is used.
Exceptional Definite Articles
Singular ? Plural
el águila ? las águilas
el alma ? las almas
el agua ? las aguas
el hambre ? las hambres
To see the entire Reference Article,
This is a popular question you can find by doing a "search" on this forum. One typically good explanation is at this thread. In short, agua is feminine. The "el" is used only in one situation, to make it easier to pronounce. "La agua" is hard to hear clearly at normal speed.
Hi lil, welcome to the forum, please make a search, there a lots of threads on this topic, thanks
Agua is a feminine noun taking a masculine article in the singular.
The substitution of el for la takes place only when it comes immediately before a singular noun that begins with a stressed a- or ha-. A few examples:
el agua (the water) el ama de casa (the housewife) el asma (asthma) el arca (the ark) el hambre (hunger) el hampa (the underworld) el arpa (the harp) el águila (the eagle)
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All the nouns in the list of examples are feminine. If they are in plural form, las is used: las amas de casa (the housewives) las arcas (the arks) If they are modified by adjectives that follow the noun, the regular rules apply to the adjectives: el agua purificada (purified water) el arpa paraguaya (the Paraguayan harp) el hambre excesiva (excessive hunger)
sometimes it doesnt matter for the a or the o at the end like if a guy were 30 they would say that he is Trienta años. Theres an a at the end of trienta but theyre still talking about a guy it really just depends on the word
