Spanish for English Speakers: Episode 8 - Definite and Indefinite Articles
¡Hola amigos de Steemit!
What on Earth are definite and indefinite articles??
Imagine a plate of cookies. There are gingerbread cookies, raisin cookies, sugar cookies (I've never understood these, Americans - don't all cookies have sugar in them?), and one chocolate chip cookie.
Now look at these two sentences:
1. Give me the chocolate chip cookie, please.
2. Give me a cookie, please.
The first sentence is talking about a specific cookie - the chocolate chip one. We use "the" for specific sentences, and we call this the definite article. In Spanish, the definite articles change depending on whether the noun is masculine, feminine, singular or plural, and they are: el, la, los and las. Click here for my blog on the gender of nouns.
The second sentence, on the other hand, is talking about any old cookie - the person doesn't mind which cookie they have (although who in their right mind would risk getting the raisin one?!). We use "a, an or some" for unspecific sentences, and we call these the indefinite articles. They also change depending on the gender/quantity of the noun and are the following: un, una, unos and unas (un = masculine singular, una = feminine singular, unos = masculine plural, unas = feminine plural).
Remember: for any plural noun, if it includes at least one male member, the masculine plural article is used. Therefore, "unos gatos" could refer to a group of 10 male cats, or a group of 9 female cats and 1 male cat.
Some examples (test yourself - try translating this subtitle with what you've just learnt!)
el perro - the male dog
los perros - the male dogs
un perro - a male dog/one male dog (un and una can also mean "one")
unos perros - some male dogs
la perra - the female dog
las perras - the female dogs
una perra - a female dog/one female dog
unas perras - some female dogs
Aw! I love rotties. Ahem, anyway, cheers for reading and a big thank you to all those of you who are following and supporting this series, it means a lot :)
- The Loopy Linguist