OK, so your Spanish teacher taught you that basically words ending in -a take the article “la” and words ending in -o take the article “el”. Right? Not quite. There are words that defy categorization and there is no magic way to learn them other than study and remember their gender. Here’s a little list:
el acorde - chord
el problema - problem
el barniz - varnish
el cobre - copper
el cometa - comet
el mueble - piece of furniture
el pez - fish (living)
el pie - foot
el reloj - clock, wristwatch
el sauce - willow
el taller - workshop
el yate - yacht
la cruz - cross
la flor - flower
la frente - forehead
la gripe – influenza, the flu
la leche - milk
la nave -spaceshift, depot
la nieve - snow
la tos - cough
la ubre - udder
la mano - hand
el sofá - sofa
el tema - theme, topic
la radio - radio
See you next time!
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2 Comments
Recently I joined the blog and I have to say I enjoy it. I hope to pick up bits and pieces every time to improve my little knowledge of Spanish.
I would like to make a remark re Spanish Articles about the ‘to be expected’ gender.
I think one has to be careful as some articles can be ‘el’ or ‘la’ depending on there meaning!
E.g. la radio = the radio however
el radio = the radius or spoke even in South America the radio is EL radio
el cometa = comet
la cometa = kite
I presume these are not the only ones.
I hope this is a help.
Joop
You are right. We posted an article on that topic a few months ago, with several examples. You can search for the article called “Gorra o gorro?”, or look at the December 2008 archive.