Marianne Vocabulary
I thoroughly enjoy the vocabulary sets prepared by Marianne BUT why are adjectives both female and male and why do most nouns have no definite article and then a few do?? I hate making mistakes and it is impossible to guess which rule is applied to the word.
But thank you very much Marianne for preparing them - really great!
3 Answers
You are right, Chris, all adjective should have a consist ending, either a or o, not aleatory.
And nouns should have an article. I am sure Marianne is going to correct that
Oh...sorry about my earlier answer then. I don't think I fully understood your question. Anyway, coming to this:
'To continue.... when a noun is given there is no indication if the definitive article is required. For example the word 'faucet' (tap in English) comes up and the answer is 'el grifo'. I am being a bit pedantic I know but just love getting them right!! '
I believe that it may be based on the assumption that the definite article is always required. So, its use wouldn't need to be indicated. But then looking at the 'verdadera' reference, I think I may have contradicted myself. I don't know....it's just the way the flashcard creator makes the answers. It's based on what they want to put. I'm sorry for the half baked answer here, but I myself am at a loss. Why don't you PM Marianne and then PM me with her answer? It seems that I've landed myself in the dunce corner once again. Oh and I agree with you, getting the answers right is what I thrive on as well, so I don't see you as being pedantic. You're just being human.
An adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies. Similar to nouns, an adjective usually end in (~o) for masculine (plural ~os), and (~a) for feminine (plural ~as).
-Un hombre alto (a tall man) -Unos hombres altos ( tall men) -Muchos libros (many books) -Una casa pequeña (a small house) - Unas chicas peligrosas (some dangerous girls) - Muchas cosas (many things)
There are also some adjectives whose masculine singular ends in a consonant and form the feminine by adding -a: Un amigo frances (a French friend - male-) Una amiga francesa (a French friend -female-)
Some other adjectives ending in a consonant take the same form for both masculine and feminine: un chico joven (a young boy) una chica joven (a young girl) unos cantantes populares (some popular singers) unas canciones populares (some popular songs)
Usually descriptive adjectives follow the nouns they modify:
una ciudad limpia (a clean city).
But the tricky part is that Spanish adjectives are different from English adjectives, in English adjectives are found before the noun they modify, while in Spanish usually they're found after the noun they modify. And also because in Spanish the adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.
