Spanish Steps - Finding your way around - Grammar

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Two words for 'the': el and la

Spanish has two words for the: el with masculine nouns and la with feminine ones.



el museo the museum
el hotel the hotel
la plaza the square
la calle the street

If a noun ends in -o, it's masculine and goes with el.
If it ends in -a, it's usually feminine and goes with la.

If you look up any noun in the dictionary it'll show whether it's masculine (m) or feminine (f) so you'll know which word for the to use:

calle (f): street
hotel (m): hotel


It's a good idea to learn the gender along with the word.

Words that go with el usually go with un; and words with la usually go with una
el parque the park
un parque a park
la calle the street
una calle a street