El agua and el Pascua?..
I know the rules of feminine and masculine but why does it not apply to "el" agua and "el" Pascua. I'm just wondering because isn't it supposed to be la agua and la Pascua. These are just the few words that don't follow the masculine and feminine rules, but there are much more! Thank you for any help and answers given! By the way, Happy Easter!
*edited : WOW! I feel so dumb now! I wasn't thinking when I posted this question because as lazarus1907 said, on the below comments, to do a quick search on "el agua" and indeed I did, and there were many, many, many, questions about el agua.
*edited - answer : It turned out it's supposed to be "el agua" instead of "la agua" because it's an irregular noun and irregular nouns don't always follow the rules with the feminine and masculine. Again, thank you soo much for all the help given!!(:
3 Answers
These are just the few words that don't follow the masculine and feminine rules
Because it's not a rule. It's only a statement about the usual correspondence of ending to gender. It can be influenced by the phonetic context as in the case of "el agua fria" ('agua' is, indeed feminine but 'la agua' sounds bad') or it can simply be a noun that ends in 'a' but is really masculine (e.g. "el problema").
It's only a general rule, lee. That's why it's a good idea, when you're learning a new noun, to be sure you learn its gender also. There's no guarantee, as you've shown, that a noun ending in an "a" will be feminine or that one ending in "o" will be masculine.
Do a quick search about "agua". This has been asked and answered countless times, but I'll give you a clue: why do you say "a clue" but not "a elephant"?
