Sustantivos Irregulares

Identifying ItemsEspañol III, p 42-43

Feminine Nouns that begin with a or ha

If a noun is feminine and begins with a stressed a or the silent h followed by a stressed a, it takes the masculine definite article el or the indefinite article un.

The noun is still considered feminine and therefore uses feminine adjectives, the article is changed just to help with pronunciation.

Feminine Nouns continued

Translation = It’s too hard to say and/or understand the back-to-back sounds of a (for example la agua sounds like lagua, which is not a word!) To fix this problem, the masculine article is used in the singular form only. El agua, las aguas Un águila, unas águilas

List

The following is a list of feminine nouns that use masculine singular articles. El agua, las aguas…water El águila, las águilas…eagle El área, las áreas…area El arma, las armas…weapon El hacha, las hachas…ax El ala, las alas…wing El hambre…hunger

Nouns that end in a

Several nouns in Spanish end in a but are masculine. These come from Greek roots. They take the definite articles el & los, and the indefinite articles un & unos.

El/La radio can be either masculine or feminine depending on the region.

The opposite is true of la mano which is feminine although it ends in o. La foto is feminine because it comes from the

feminine noun la fotografía.

Masculine nouns that end in a

These nouns ending in a are masculine. El clima climate El día day El drama drama El mapa map El planeta planet El poema poem El programa program El sistema system El telegrama telegram El tema theme