Which is correct.. El primer de mayo or El primero de mayo and why?
Normally you drop the o in primero when used before a masculine noun, why am I seeing el primero de mayo?
4 Answers
you have to write down the O because "primero" is acting like a noun. If you had a noun and "primer/o" was the adjective you can drop the O. See the following examples: El primer día de mayo. El primero de mayo. So as "día" is masculine you add an O and if it were a feminine then you should add an A. (when there's no noun)
primero is shortened to primer before masculine, singular nouns. When used as a noun, rather than a determiner it is primero.
el primer día de mayo
Look at the dictionary examples to see how primero can be used as a noun, adverb or determiner (adjective).
El 1 de junio de 2012 (in writing you can avoid the whole issue)
El primer día de mayo
Primero de mayo. It is exactly like in English. May the 1st. The difference is that in Spanish, after the first of every month, we just say the number+of+month. I.E. dos de marzo, quince de abril, treinta y uno de diciembre, etc. In English, you add st, nd, rd, or th.
