Another question regarding 'a la', 'la' and 'a'. Either my course is wrong about this or I'm not fully understanding this.
While I thought I understood the answer to my last question, I checked the answers to my work and these were the correct answers:
Yolanda is going to church. Yolanda va a la iglesia.
You are going to the movies. Tú vas al cine.
They (girls) are going to the bank. Ellas van al banco.
How is this right?
6 Answers
Hola de nuevo:
If you look at the link provided on your previous post regarding definite articles (link to another source), you will find information regarding the concept of gender agreement (in this case el vs. la).
In regards to your specific questions:
1). Yolanda is going to church. Yolanda va a la iglesia.
The word for church (iglesia) is considered a feminine noun (in reference to grammatic gender). Because it is a feminine noun, if a definite article is attached to this noun then the definite article must match the gender of the noun. In this case, the feminine (singular) definite article is "la." In comparison to English (which only makes use of a single definite article, "the"), Spanish generally employs four separate forms of the definite article (not including the neuter article) which vary by number (singular vs. plural) and gender (masculine vs feminine).
2). You are going to the movies. Tú vas al cine.
Here the word for movies (cine) is considered masculine (and singular). The appropriate definite article then would be "el;" however, in Spanish, the combination of the preposition "a" and the article "el" forms a contraction (note: the combination of "a" and "la" do not form a similar contraction):
a + el ? al
3). They (girls) are going to the bank. Ellas van al banco.
Again, this is the same as (2). above in that the term for bank (banco) is a masculine noun, and the contraction is formed by the combination of "a" and "el."
Again, it might help to have another look at the links to the reference articles provided in your other post. In addition, you might want to review the concept of grammatical gender as it is discussed here: Nouns and gender
There is one other thing that I would like to point out regarding your example sentences.
If you are interested in learning to communicate effectively in Spanish, it cannot be stressed enough (and especially from the very beginning) that the use of subject pronouns (i.e. English—I, you, we, he, she, they/Spanish—yo, tú, él, ella, nosotros, etc) is not the same across the two languages. In English, the usage is often mandatory in order to identify the subject of the sentence. In Spanish, however, the verb endings already identify the subject and placing the subject pronoun before the verb is usually only done in order to add emphasis. Perhaps this effect can be demonstrated as follows:
2). You are going to the movies. Tú vas al cine.
3). They (the girls) are going to the bank. Ellas van al banco.
The bold, red text here is meant to convey the emphasis that you are placing on these words by including them in the Spanish sentences. Often this emphasis is used to imply a contrast or to clear up any possible ambiguity, such as: They are going to the bank (and not somebody else).
Bottom line is that even though many Spanish workbooks (unfortunately) are wont to include the subject pronoun in each and every answer provided, this is quite simply not the way that Spanish is spoken or written in actual practice, and performing these workbook exercises without a clear understanding of this fact can be detrimental to your development. Speaking or writing in this manner, moreover, carries with it the added burden of immediately being pegged as a "gringo."
I am not sure if your textbook is formatted this way, but many textbooks will often put an unnecessary subject pronoun in parenthesis to demonstrate to the reader that the use of such a pronoun would be superfluous. For example:
?You are going to the movies. (Tú) vas al cine.
?They (the girls) are going to the bank. ´
You can get an idea of how this works when you compare the use of parenthesis in English. For example, you wouldn't usually say something like:
They the girls are going to the bank [unnecessary restatement of the subject]
In the same way, including the subject pronoun in Spanish is often unnecessarily repetitious.
Omg. Ok. Now I get it. Thanks so much Izanoni1. I wasn't thinking it had to do with gender. Now its cleared up. Thanks!!
Va is the third person congugation of Ir which is to go so it means he or she is going in your case Yolanda is going so Va + a means in this case she is going to and then the object pronoun for a femenine noun La + iglesia and the other two questions using the same pattern Vas means you go second person and Van is third person but in plural form they go and as Vitrium has already told you A + El is conracted to form AL and if you was coming from the cinema instead of saying De el cine you would say Del cine = from the cinema.
"Al" = una contracción con el articulo definido.
According to Gramática básica del estudiante de espanñol:
Después de las preposiciones a y de, el articulo el forma con ellas una sola palabra:
a + el = al
de + el = del
a la iglesia ....no contraction, a + la does not contract.
al cine = a el cine, a + el contracts
al banco = a el banco, a + el contracts
Not sure I understand your question, but if the noun is masculine (el cine) then instead of saying "a el cine", you combine the two to make "al cine." This is to avoid the awkward phrasing.
