Why do we say "el sofa"
2
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Why do we say "el sofá" and not "la sofá"? I thought that if the word is feminine then it should be preceded by La and not el. Thank You.
12441 views
updated Mar 21, 2013
posted by barryoreilly
5 Answers
3
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Sometimes we have to simply accept things as they are.
Or you can argue that "sofá" is a type of "asiento" so instead of saying the complete "el asiento sofá", we shorten it to "el sofá".
Rather than saying "la fotografía", we shorten it to "la foto".
updated Mar 19, 2013
posted by 005faa61
2
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Thank you guys all very helpful.
updated Mar 21, 2013
posted by barryoreilly
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There are some exceptions to the rule. You just have to memorize them. Some other examples are:
La mano: hand El aguilla: eagle
There are others. Can anyone name some more?
updated Mar 21, 2013
posted by rosemarybeth
La radio. - ray76, Mar 19, 2013
Isn't Augilla feminine. It just uses el in the singular. A better example might be el clima - HackerKing, Mar 21, 2013
Most words from Greek (ama or ema endings) are masculine. - Noetol, Mar 21, 2013
2
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go to my flashcards
updated Mar 21, 2013
posted by readytodictate
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I'm not sure of the origin of sofá, but many foreign words use "el" instead of "la."
updated Mar 19, 2013
posted by BigMike
Etymology: Turkish, from Arabic suffa, carpet, divan, from Aramaic sipp (and so on). I agree about the foreign words taking el sort-of-rule. - Manity, Mar 19, 2013
