when do you use al instead of a la?

Question

No veo dueño y no conozco camareros (waiters). .

Answer 1

Never. At least not in Spanish.

Al is a contraction of a el. This makes sense because if you say a el it already sounds like al. For the same reason de el becomes del.

Answer 2

Tu eres bueno maestro. Lol am I saying that right? Anyways, thank you for explaining that so well.

"Tú eres un bueno maestro." "Tú" needs an accent; otherwise it means your. When a profession is modified (as by "bueno") it needs an indefinite article. - garypopkin, Mar 29, 2016

Answer 3

"Al" and "la" are not related, though they may look like they are.

You know that little article "el" you see before nouns that means "the"? How about that one letter "word" that means "to"? Well, those are actually where "al" comes from.

In a correct sentence, you will never see "a + el".

If I wanted to say "My brother went to the park"...we are going to use "a" for "to", but "park" is a masculine noun (el parque). How would you write this?

Incorrect: Mi hermano fue a el parque.

Why is that incorrect? A + el = NO!

Correct version of that sentence: Mi hermano fue al parque.

That's better

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Now, "la" means "the", but it proceeds feminine nouns.

Let's talk about the sentence, "My brother went to the store"...

We are going to use "a" again for "to", but since "store" is a feminine word (la tienda) we will use "la".

Incorrect: Mi hermano fue ala tienda.

You cannot combine "a" plus "la".

Correct version of that sentence: Mi hermano fue a la tienda.

Answer 4

Welcome to the forum. Good question.

La = feminine pronoun, e.,g. La messa, La muchacha, La montaña, etc.

Al (a + el) = Voy al cine, mira al muchacho, etc.

Del (de + el) = Jose del mercado, Árbol del centro, etc.