In today’s blog, we learn the difference between definite and indefinite articles and their usage in Spanish!
The difference between definite articles and indefinite articles is that definite articles (like the) are associated with specific or particular items while indefinite articles (like a and an) may refer to any item
For example :
1. Give me the red pen – you are referring to a particular pen
2. Give me a pen – you want any pen
Definite articles in Spanish: In English, ‘the’ is used as the definite article regardless of gender or count (singular/plural).
However in Spanish, the definite article ‘the’ has four forms – el, la, los and las
The definite article in Spanish varies on the basis of gender and count
With masculine/mixed noun in singular form, the form of ‘the’ used is ‘el’
With feminine noun in singular form we use ‘la’
With masculine/mixed nouns in plural form we use ‘los’
And with feminine nouns in plural form we use ‘las’
The masculine plural definite article (los) is also used to indicate a group of mixed gender
Here are a few examples:
The male cat is El gato
The female cats is Las gatas
Indefinite articles: In Spanish, the indefinite article has 4 forms, depending on whether the noun is masculine, feminine, singular or plural
They are Un, Una, Unos, and Unas
With masculine/mixed noun in singular form, the form of ‘a/an’ used is ‘un’
With feminine noun in singular form we use ‘una’
With masculine/mixed nouns in plural form we use ‘unos’
And with feminine nouns in plural form we use ‘unas’
Examples:
Some male/mixed cats is Unos gatos
A female cat is Una gata
For more details on articles along with lots of examples, refer to this lesson on CultureAlley
