Agreement of nouns, articles and adjectives

							Agreement of , articles and adjectives
Remember rule. They dictate what gender (feminine/masculine) and number (singular/plural) the articles and the adjectives must be

Remember, Nouns are persons, places or things
• • • • • • • • The girl The man A woman The house An apartment The school The hat A shirt la chica el hombre una mujer la casa un apartamento la escuela el sombrero una camisa

Articles
• We have two types of articles, definite and indefinite articles. • The definite article in English is the. In Spanish we have four forms of the: Masculine = el Feminine = la Masc. plural = los Fem. plural= las The indefinite article in English is a/an. In Spanish we have two forms for a/an, and two forms for the plural, some: Masculine = un Feminine = una Masc. plural = unos Fem. Plural = unas

Adjectives are describing words
•
»

singular
masc. Fem.

plural
Masc. Fem.

• • • • •

Beautiful =bonito, bonita, bonitos, bonitas Fat = gordo, gorda, gordos, gordas Big= grande, grandes, Blue = azul, azules, Brown= marrón, marrones

Nouns
• Nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine. Usually: • Nouns that end in –o are masculine, like chico, pelo, perro, gato, vestido, zapato, etc. • Nouns that end in –a are feminine, like chica, camisa, falda, blusa, camiseta, etc. • But other nouns will end in different letters, so that you will have to memorize them with an article to remember their gender, i.e.: • El suéter, el calcetín, el color, la comunidad, etc.

Nouns that refer to people are naturally either feminine or masculine, like: Un/el hombre Una/la mujer Un/el chico Una/la chica

But most other nouns are feminine or masculine without any specific masculine or feminine meaning, like: Un/el vestido which is masculine but is worn by females. Una/la camisa which is feminine but can be worn by males or females.

What agrees with nouns?
• The article, definite or indefinite, and the adjective(s) must agree with the noun they refer to. Example:

• Pablo lleva una camisa blanca y una chaqueta negra. (una and blanca must agree with camisa, not with Pablo). • María lleva un sombrero rosado y unos zapatos rojos. (un and rosado must agree with sombrero, and unos y rojos must agree with zapatos, not with María).