confusion with el and la >:|
Well i was on a lesson and understood the usage of el and la.
el with words ending in O because it was masculine and la with words ending in A because it was feminine like la fruta, but then she said el agua
and that threw me off. Can some one please explain this to me?
thank you<33
17 Answers
Thanks, that helped me better to understand it and now I know "el agua" is a feminine noun, with a masculine "the", Gracias.
Yes, it can be confusing to us English speakers, since we don't have gendered nouns. What used to confuse me was when I would hear things like, "El agua está fría" or "Vi un águila muy hermosa". It seemed to be a contradiction.
They continue to be feminine nouns and require feminine adjectives, and feminine definite articles in the plural. Also, if there is an adjective before the noun, it retains its final "a" and the article reverts back to "la".
el agua
las aguas
el agua fría
la susodicha agua
un águila muy hermosa
una hermosa águila
I have been told that this usage of "el" is not technically masculine, but that it is a morph of the Latin definite article "ella" (or "illa", I can't remember), dropping the "-la" before the stressed "a" sound. I have no clue as to the accuracy of this, but that is how it was explained to me when I said that "agua" takes a masculine article. Lazarus knows a lot about etymology; maybe he can confirm or clarify this.
If you ask him nicley he may...
And yes, I have lists...
Any possibility you would consider sharing them''
Now, in Spanish the trend is to assign -o endings to masculine entities, and -a to feminine entities (remember that gender is a grammatical feature that does not have to match the sex of a sexual creature).
Practically all nouns ending in -o are masculine, except a few shortened ones or some foreign words. For example, "la radio" is a short for "la radiodifusión", and "la moto" is a short for "la motocicleta".
Most geographical references (lakes, mountains, rivers,...) happen to be masculine.
Words ending in -or, -aje and -an are masculine, except flor (and derivatives), labor, sor and paralaje.
The great majority of nouns ending in -a are feminine, but many ending in -ista (Greek ending) are common to both genders (e.g. el/la artista, el/la deportista, el/la tenista,...). There is a significant group of words ending in -a (most of them from Greek, and ending in -ma) that can be masculine or common to both genders. Some examples are "aroma", "día", "idioma", "fantasma", "sistema", "tema",...
Most words ending in -d are feminine. Some exceptions are abad, ataúd, césped, and foreign words such as "milord".
Practically all words ending in -ción and -sión are feminine. The only exceptions are augmentatives of masculine words, such as "notición".
We can also include most words in -l, and -z, although there are a few important exceptions, such as lápiz, pez, altavoz,...
I have just been clarified, ¡Gracias, Lazarus!
deleted
And yes, I have lists...
I don't need to compile a list: I do remember all this by rote! 
First a historical explanation: most European languages appear to have a common linguistic ancestor called Indo-European. This reconstructed language shares features with modern descendants, such as German, Hindi, Polish, Swedish, Russian, French, Spanish..., but languages have changed a lot in time, and English is one of the Indo-European languages that has changed the most, if you ask me. You just need to go back 8 or 9 hundred years to find genders in Old-English.
So, what is gender anyway? It is a twisted human invention that assigns certain grammatical features to some words, most of the time without any apparent logical reason. Surely, if we go back in time, people could have given an argument in favour of assigning a plant one ending instead of another (e.g. masculine, feminine, or neutral), but I bet that such arguments now sound incomprehensible and even absurd, if there was ever one. So, in languages like German, things and people are either masculine, feminine, or neutral, but ladies can be neutral and potatoes feminine. Genders have a limited practical usefulness when they are used with sexual beings, such as "primo" (male cousin)/ "prima" (female cousin", "amigo" (male friend) / "amiga" (female friend), and such, but they are a burden when you refer to asexual entities, and to make things worse, genders in different languages have evolved differently, so there are no fixed rules to apply.
I suppose until He sees this, it won't be confirmed or clarified...
And, Welcome to the forum, Jasmine_Marie.
Thanks, that helped me better to understand it and now I know "el agua" is a feminine noun, with a masculine "the", Gracias.
el is used with things that end in o (most of the time) and la is used with things that end in a (most of the time) or you could say el= masculine and la = feminine
for example
el carro los carros
la casa las casas
los is used with masculine plural nouns
las is used with feminine plural nouns
"El" is used with masculine singular nouns, "la" with feminine singular nouns, without regard to the last letter of the word. Some nouns end in "e", and some of those are masculine and some are feminine. Some examples have already been given by Nathaniel of masculine nouns that end in "a", and of nouns that can be either masculine or feminine depending on whether the person referred to is male or female (e.g., "artista", "comunista").
"Agua" falls under an exception to this rule. Yes, "agua" is a feminine noun, but the exception is for nouns that begin with the stressed "a" sound, to include "ha" (that is, the stressed or accented syllable is that initial syllable that includes the "a" sound). "El" is used to avoid the back-to-back stressed "a" sound (e.g., LAH AG-ua, LAH AH-ge-lah [águila--see below]). Other examples would be "el hacha", "el hambre", "el asta", "el acta" "el ágata" "el águila" ... Maybe Lazarus or someone else has an exhaustive or semi-exhaustive list, but a list is not necessary if you just remember that before a stressed "a-" or "ha-", use "el".
This exception also applies to the indefinite article, e.g., un hacha, un águila, etc.
I have explained this very roughly, in crude, unofficial terms. Maybe one of our resident Ph.D.'s (or soon-to-be) can explain it more "officially."
I'm sure that there are plenty more?
Why o why did you say this? At present Lazarus is compiling some 2,000 examples just to highlight your comment, hehe
Where is the list? Has he posted it yet?
Give him time, 2000 will even take Lazarus at least a half hour.
el is used with things that end in o (most of the time) and la is used with things that end in a (most of the time) or you could say el= masculine and la = feminine
for example
el carro los carros
la casa las casas
los is used with masculine plural nouns
las is used with feminine plural nouns
some things are just like that on what you are asking, I'm not sure when you use them though, just keep listening to Paralee
I know you know what I typed I just had to...
I'm sure that there are plenty more?
Why o why did you say this? At present Lazarus is compiling some 2,000 examples just to highlight your comment, hehe
Where is the list? Has he posted it yet'
