why el agua and not la agua?

Question

why do you use "el" agua and not "la" agua if things that end in "a" are feminine and "el" is masculine?

Answer 1

Welcome to the forum!

This question is frequently asked on the forum. The use of "la agua" creates a condition where two "a" sounds occur together, so "el" is used in this case. If you'll do a search on the forum for this question, some answers will list other nouns that have similar handling.

I hope that helps.

Answer 2

Agua is feminine. They write el agua because it's easier to pronounce than la agua.

This is the case will all feminine words that start with 'a' or 'ha' AND have an emphasis on the first syllable.

Note that the plural form (although not very useful with water) DOES use las, cuz then you don't have the pronounciacion problem.

"Las aguas" is indeed useful. Las aguas del caribe = The waters of the Caribbean. - gintar77, Jul 12, 2011

Or "las aguas negras", the sewage. - LuisCache, Jul 12, 2011

Answer 3

And... even in it's singular form, it uses feminine adjectives.

El agua fría.

El agua roja.

its. no apostrophe. - pesta, Jul 12, 2011

Answer 4

This question has been reviewed before, actually :D

In brief, saying "la agua" in a real-life situation would pose itself as very confusing, since it would ultimately sound like "laagua." Hence, the Spanish people decided to add the "el" before it, for this reason simply. In plural form however, things revert back to "las aguas."

Or so I've heard. Hope this helped :D

Answer 5

But the plural form takes the femenine.

Las aguas del río Nilo...