El agua !!!
Bonjour !
This is my first message on this forum as I started the course 2 days ago.
I speak french but I ask my question in english :
Why do we say "el agua" as the final letter is feminin ? I suppose it should be "la agua"? but even in french, we have some exceptions which are really boring !!! Thank you in advance for your answer.
32 Answers
Bienvenue!
A feminine noun that starts with A or HA and is stressed on the first syllable takes the masculine article in the singular form.
el agua, las aguas
el hacha, las hachas
What about 'hache'? Is it "la hache" like "la ce", "la eme", and all other letters of the alphabet, or does it still fall under your phonetic rule?
Excellent question. I had never thought about it, but it is indeed an exception to this rule. I have no idea why the rule is not applied to it. Maybe someone can enlighten us. As far as I know (which isn't really all that far), this is the only exception to the rule, and this seems to be confirmed by some googling just now.
Mark Baker wrote:
So if there was a need to write 'Good Water? in the singular it would be 'buen? since agua is a singular masculine noun and then changes to 'bueno? for the plural, since the plural aguas is a feminine plural noun? Is that right?
Agua is not a masculine noun, it is a regular feminine noun. The only thing that changes is that the articles el and un and the indefinites algún and ningún proceed such nouns in masculine form. This is done for the purpose of euphony only. Agua is feminine in all of its forms.
Words that are not stressed on the first syllable do not fall under this rule: la alhambra, la harina, la acné.
Also, the article goes back to being feminine if there is an adjective between it and the noun: la cristalina agua, la tremenda hambre (but "el hambre").
With regards to el agua, the el does not have a tilde on the "e" unlike él other definate articles.
Actually "él" means "he"; the article "el" never takes the accent.
And by the way the tilde is the little squishy thing (~), the one that goes on top of ñ. What goes on top of vowels is called the "acute accent".
As far as I know (which isn't really all that far), this is the only exception to the rule, and this seems to be confirmed by some googling just now.
According to B&B, there are a few others: Women's names (la Ana, la Ángela), la aya, la haz, la Haya, la árabe, la ácrata, and abbreviations (la AUF).
Saludos 
Hey Beethoven, I was taught it was called the "acute accent" in French many years ago .....and the other is the "grave" accent
There's also the circumflex accent (â), the umlaut (ä), the cedilla (ç)... but anglophones can be forgiven for not knowing much about all this nonsense
What about "la águila"? If the rule has exceptions then it does not help at all.
It's not an exception, and it should be "el águila."
Hay que tener en cuenta que en el español corriente (Méx.) por vicio de dicción se dan las contracciones y es común oír:
¡mira l'águila! (el águila)
¡pásame l'acha! (el hacha)
Tony, no es un vicio, sino una tendencia natural al hablar que las gramáticas denominan sinalefa. En el lenguaje hablado espontáneo es lo normal, y se considera totalmente correcto incluso en situaciones formales; esas frases solo se pronuncian por separado y sin "contracciones" al hablar muy despacio o al hacerlo de un modo casi artificialmente cuidado.
Thanks, I hadn't thought to do a search. I did find the old posts that addressed this question.
Please do a search for previous topics, as this has been discussed many times. In English you say "a cat", but you don't say "a arch", but "an arch"; that change from "a" to "an" to softens the transition between both words, and avoids that double "a a". Similarly, in Spanish, when a feminine word beginning with an stressed "a" sound (remember that the H has no sound in Spanish), the article "la" changes to "el", pretty much like "a" changes to "an" in English.
Other words like this:
águila
hacha
arma
Ah, and it is "grammar", not "grammer". The word comes from Latin grammatica (through French "grammaire"); you are not "grammering" anything.
I was reviewing some of the spanish grammer lessons under the reference tab. The lesson on definite articles refers to agua as male - "el agua". The lesson on indefinite articles refers to agua as female - "una agua". Is this an error or does the gender of agua change? Thanks
Hay que tener en cuenta que en el español corriente (Méx.) por vicio de dicción se dan las contracciones y es común oír:
¡mira l'águila! (el águila)
¡pásame l'acha! (el hacha)
jajaja Robert Austin.....Lazarus is waiting for you in the car park and his sleeves are rolled up and he looks mean.
Lol
Gracias por la pregunta. [size=3][/size]
Woaaaohhhh ! I didn't imagine that my simple question would be at the origin of a such intensive discussion ! thank you, and I'll try to remember the rules and exceptions.
jajaja Robert Austin.....Lazarus is waiting for you in the car park and his sleeves are rolled up and he looks mean.
