Lesson Transcript

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Today, we're going to have a look at the definite articles in Spanish.
Hola, soy Brenda Romaniello, tu profesora de español.
We're going to have a look at the different ways that we are going to say that in Spanish. And I want to give you a clue because I want you to start thinking about what are the different ways that we are going to use this definite article in Spanish. And just to give you a clue, there's four different ways to say "the" in Spanish.
So in English, we have only one way to say that, and in Spanish, we're going to have four different ways to say this. Why do we have four different definite articles in Spanish when you only have one in English? I'll give you a few seconds, and I want you to tell me why do you think we have four options to say that in Spanish?
Okay, I hope that maybe you started to figure things out or maybe you had a few guesses there.
Basically, we're gonna have four different options because we're gonna have one option for masculine, one option for feminine, and then we're gonna have one option for singular masculine and one for, of course, plural masculine, and one for singular feminine and one for plural feminine. So that's why we have four different ways to say that in Spanish.
As you may or may not know, in Spanish, we need to agree with everything in a sentence. So if we have the noun, the noun is going to determine what is the gender that we need to pretty much agree on everything. So the adjective that describes the noun has to be in the same gender and number, and the definite article as well.
So let's have a look at one example: "gato."
So, gato, I have a question for you: Is "gato" femenino or masculino, in this case?
So you can see, "gato" ends in "o," so it's very likely to be masculine, right?
So we have a male cat in this case.
"Gato" is going to determine the gender and the number of everything that is around it, everything that will modify this noun.
So if I want to say "black cat," I'm going to say "gato negro."
As you can see here, I have to match, "gato" is only one, so I have to say "negro."
And we're gonna go back, we're gonna come back to this example after we have a look at the different definite articles to say "the black cat" in this case.
Okay, we said there's four different forms to say "the" in Spanish.
Number one, número uno, we're going to say: el.
El.
Repetir, repeat after me: el.
El significa "the," and in this case, this is the masculino singular. So this is a singular masculine definite article in Spanish. So we're going to match or we're going to use this definite article with something, a noun that is masculino and singular.
For example, "el libro," the book.
The second option, número dos, is: la.
La.
Repetir, repeat after me: la.
So la is femenino singular, so we are going to use this definite article to talk about a noun that is femenino and singular. Por ejemplo, la mesa, "the table."
La mesa.
Opción número tres, so the third option, we're gonna have: los.
Los.
So I want you to tell me why is it "los" here? Can you think of why we have "los" as a third option in this case?
Okay, so "los" is gonna be masculino plural, masculino plural.
So we are matching a noun that is going to be masculine and plural, so more than one and masculino.
Por ejemplo, los carros, "the cars."
And the number four, número cuatro, the fourth one here is going to be: las.
Las.
And I'm sure that by now you should know why do we have "las" and why does it mean, what do we need to agree with in the sentence. "Las" is going to be femenino and plural, so we're going to match it with a noun that is plural and femenino as well.
Por ejemplo, las casas.
Las casas, "the houses."
Muy bien. So those are the four ways to say that in Spanish. We have: el, la, los, and las.
Remember, these definite articles will have to match what they are describing. In this case, they're gonna have to describe a noun depending on, of course, if they're masculine, femenino, singular, and plural.
So let's have a few examples here when we go back to the black cat that we have the example before. So in this case, we're gonna say: el gato negro.
As you can see, gato here is masculino and singular, and therefore is going to need anything that is modifying this noun will have to be exactly in the same gender and number.
That's why we say negro, and that's why we say el.
if we had, for example, gatos, in this case, we are going to say: los gatos negros.
Can you see now everything has to be matching and in agreement in a sentence in Spanish?
That's why we have four different forms to say that in Spanish.
Now let's practice. I'm going to give you some nouns, yes, some things, people or things, and I want you to tell me what is the article that we're going to need to say the thing, yeah, or the person, the animal that I'm going to tell you now. ¿Estás listo? Are you ready? Vamos.
Pájaros. Pájaros.
Pájaros is masculino and also plural, so we're going to say: los pájaros.
Manzanas. Manzanas.
Manzanas is femenino, so we're going to say: las manzanas.
Perro. Perro.
For perro, we have "o" so it's probably masculino; we're gonna say: el perro.
Muy bien.
Cama. Cama.
Cama is femenino, so we're going to say: la cama.
Muy bien. Eso es todo por hoy, that's all for today.
Muchas gracias. Thank you so much for watching, and I really hope that you now know how to say that in Spanish in these four different ways.
Muchas gracias y nos vemos en la próxima clase. Adiós.

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