1.3 lesson question

Question

I was doing the falshcards for lesson 1.3 and it has "el agua". Shouldn't it be la agua? Thanks!

Answer 1

No, although you are absolutely right about 'agua' being a feminine noun.

But la/una are replaced by el/un directly before feminine nouns that begin with a stressed (h)a-sound, like agua, hambre, aguilar, hacha, área, ala, ...

Hope this helps you

Answer 2

Ah, if only. Although agua is feminine, for the sake of euphony, Spanish uses el in front of it (and other words beginning with a). French does much the same thing with possessives. English used to do something similar, e.g., "Mine eyes have seen the glory..." from The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Note that the a ending is not a perfectly reliable indicator of gender. Although Spanish uses endings to indicate gender in many situations, ultimately, a noun's gender simply is what it is Spanish inherited both of these characteristics from Latin. In Latin, as in Spanish, many adjectives show gender by taking a endings when feminine and o/u endings when masculine, e.g., femina bona (good woman) and homo bonus (good man). The same is true of some nouns, e.g., filia (daughter) and filius (son). But there are a number of exceptions, e.g., nauta (sailor) and agricola (farmer) are both masculine. Gender is difficult for native speakers of English, which has none, to learn.

agua is not masculine - 0074b507, Feb 3, 2012