Differences between la / el?
I get confusing while i am learning ..cause they are things,like la mesa,el televisor,el lavabo, la puerta,,,right..But why there is la and el if your describing a things,then they same meaning..
Tengo confuso mientras yo estoy aprendiendo .. porque son las cosas, como La Mesa, El Televisor, El lavabo, la puerta ,, a la derecha .. Pero ¿por qué no es la y El si su descripción de algunas de las cosas, entonces ellos mismo significado. .
5 Answers
I understand your confusion because it's difficult to learn a whole new way of speaking!
Sometimes articles are used in Spanish (and other romance languages) that we don't use in English....
Me gusta much la pizza. (I really like pizza)
Voy a la tienda el jueves. (I'm going to the store on Thursday)
Hablo bien el español. (I speak Spanish well.)
El fumar está prohibido. (Smoking is prohibited.)
Hi Roselyn,
This can be confusing! If you go to the Grammar Reference page, there's a section on Articles, which will explain the basic rules, and then there's a practice quiz at the end. (Very useful!)
However, since there are exceptions to these rules, I suggest that you go to the Gender section next. That's where they explain how to recognise masculine and feminine nouns by their endings, which nouns are exceptions, and why it's el alma but las almas. (It's so clear. Yippee!)
Here's an extract from the section on masculine nouns. (Enjoy!)
For All Those Masculine Nouns that Don't End in -O...
If it ends in -e, an accented vowel (á, é, í, ó, ú), -ma, or a consonant other than -d, -z, or ión, it's also masculine.
Non -O Masculine Nouns
-e el perfume, el estante, el maquillaje accented vowel el colibrí, el ají, el ñandú consonant (except -d, -z, and -ión)
el árbol, el rumor, el cojín -ma el programa, el drama, el idioma And, the exceptions...
English and Spanish articles are used differently.
I made this flowchart to explain how to use them in English.
This chart explains how to use articles in English
Under "View the Book" hit the "Doc" link and it downloads the file to your desktop.
Hi Roselyn
have a look at this thread for some exceptions to the normal El and La
Good luck
A little help with your English.
"I get confusing while I am learning" - in English we do not usually use the continuous ( -ing ) with stative (non-active) verbs. " I get confused while I am learning "
If you want a better explanation send me a PM ok?
Hello rose, first of all I want to congratulate you on learning Spanish and English at the same time because that´s not easy, it requires a very strog will. Well, each language has its own grammatical structure and grammar rules.For example the English language has just a denifite article (the) and it´s used in plural as well; Spanish has mainly two singular definite articles (el/la) ; however German has six articles (der, die,den, das, des,dem). As you can see each language is different and we have to learn according to that.
Ok, now let´s see about Spanish. It has two genders(masculine and femenine), there are a third gender which is neutre(lo); but it isn´t very common in Spanish, because there´re just a few words with that gender, so don´t worry about that. So you have to use according to the gender of the nouns, in Spanish is easy to know the genders.
1.-A noun is masculine if it ends in -o,-or. For example: el televisor.
2.-A noun is feminine if it ends in -a, -ar. For example: la puerta.
There are just some exceptions, no worries.
