Coffee Break Spanish - When to use 'el' with feminine nouns - 'El agua', 'el hambre' and other examples | The Coffee Break Spanish Show 1.02

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

Welcome back to the Coffee Break Spanish Show! In Episode 2, we look at Spanish nouns that take the article 'el' despite being feminine nouns, such as 'el agua' and 'el aula'. By the end of this episode, you'll have a much better understanding of Spanish gender rules, helping you communicate more confidently!➡️ Click here to access the blog article and worksheet which accompany this episode ⬅️☕️ Purchase a Coffee Break mug here ☕️ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Coffee Break Spanish. Welcome to the Coffee Break Spanish Show. I'm Mark. And I am Abel. How you are Annabelle? I'm very well. You're very, very content to be with you,

on the studio for another episode of Coffee Break Spanish. Now these weekly episodes are helping you take your Spanish to the next level. Every time you come together with a coffee, like us here, and you can get one of these mugs. If you're watching the video version,

you can see these beautiful mugs. You can get your own mug at the link below this video. If you're not watching the video, then just go to coffeebreakgiftshop.com. Anyway, we're not here to talk about monks. We're here to talk about what we're learning. So, Annabelle, what we're going to learn. Today, we're going to be one common mistake because it's related to something surprising or just different about nouns or certain nouns gender.

Okay, so the grammatical gender of a noun in Spanish tends to follow typical kind of rules, as it were. but sometimes those rules are broken. Uh-huh. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Now, if you are watching this video, then make sure you subscribe to our channel on YouTube. Uh-huh. And if you are listening to the podcast,

then remember to also subscribe there in, like wherever you are listening to this. Perfect. So, let's start. Vena, let's go. So to begin this episode, Annabelle, we've got a little challenge for our listeners, haven't we?

That's, so we wanted to ask the learners what gender is Agua. Okay, the word, Agua, it means water, and our question is, what gender is Agua? And we're talking about the grammatical gender of this word in Spanish. So it can be either feminine or masculine. Indeed. Well, I know that it's El Agua. We have to say El Agua, because la Agua sounds really awful, but El Agua would suggest that it's

masculine, but the fact that it ends in an A, most words that end in an A, like La Mesa, would be feminine. So what is the gender of So, our is feminine, it's a feminine noun, but as you said, we have, we must say el-awa. Yeah. And this not only happens with words like

but also amre. Okay, so ambris, hunger. Yes, yes. Also, aula, classroom, and so many others. Okay, so why is this happening? Because all these words have something in common.

Agua, Ambre, aula, all this starts with an stress, A. Yeah, and it's a stressed A sound. It might not necessarily be the letter A, for example, Ambity starts with H.

Yes, so as stressed A, and that is when it's going to become el something, even though the word itself is feminine. So all these three words are feminine, but because they start with an stress A, then we are saying, El Agua, El Ambre, El Aula, and not only with El, but also with one,

Algun and Ningun Okay, so if we said let's focus on aula, an easy word there for classroom if we said

a classroom it would be Un Aola even though it's an A and even though it's feminine it's an Aula and you also said

Algun Algun Aula So some classroom or other Or Ningun Aola Or no classroom Ninguin Aula

So in each case there, we're seeing a feminine word, but it's using the masculine articles. Mm-hmm. So yes. But only because it's singular. Okay, okay, okay. So... Imagine that instead of saying the classroom, you want to say the classrooms. Yeah.

Then we are using las alas. But this actually, I feel this makes sense because if you think of laula, which sounds awful, that's why we see a laula, so that there's a consonant break in between. between the vowel sounds there. If we think about las aulas, we've got our consonant breaking there with the S.

So las aulas. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, yes. So hot waters. And las amres,

hungars, that's a lot of strange. Very well. And also we also have to remember that it's only going to, like this is only going to be happening with El, un,

Algun and Ningun. If we are saying this water, then it's feminine. This Agua.

This water, this also happens with other like adjectives. Okay. For example,

Nuestra Ambre. So our hunger, Nestra Ambre, our classroom. Mm-hmm. So if we are

not using El, Un, Nung, and Algun, then feminine. Okay, so let's recap a little.

We have looked at words which are feminine but which use el or un as the article. And these words are where the a sound is stressed at the beginning, Andbre, aula, agua, so on. But when we use on,

Ningon, Algon or El, these are the times when we use that masculine article. Interesting. But when it comes to pretty much other adjectives, then there we're going to use the feminine form. So much ambris. A. This

Aula And so Perfect. Okay, So far. So far so good. Yeah, but

now I have like a challenging challenge. Challeng challenge. Yes. Desafi or

defiant? So it's Now that we know all these, how would we say, let's focus on

on water. All the water. Okay. So I know that Agua is feminine.

I know it's El Agua. Very But is it To do or Toda

El Agua? Well, is To do in those four that we know? So the four were Un

Nung Nung Algun and the definite article So it's So it's

So it's Perfect Yeah It's All All Aqua That

Yeah That Yeah Yeah But It's It's It's

It's that the other adjective, we are always going to agree with like the feminine. So if we want to say the small classroom, then it will be... La Pequeña Ola. Mm-hmm. Or El Aula Pequeña. Madre me. Okay, so La Pequeña Aula or El Aula Pekeña.

Perfecto. Wow. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So for example, if we want to say the BELA, The big area.

Then area is area. So it's a stress with an accent there. Okay. And big is grande. So it can be la grand area or el area grande. Okay. So now we're looking at adjectives and how they work. Grand and grande is something we'll cover in another episode.

We talked about lots in coffee big Spanish. But so we've got El area grande. Perfect. Or la granaria. Uh-huh. Just simply because the adjective is between that article and the down. Yeah. Okay, good.

Excellent. Now, how will you say, just to practice a little bit, how would we say the bald eagle? The bald eagle. Okay, so an eagle in Spanish is Agila. Uh-huh, with another beautiful accent. So it's a stressed a to begin with, therefore it would be El Agila. Mm-hmm. And were you saying the bald eagle?

Mm-hmm. Okay. So I know that bald is calvo. Now, the reason I know bald is calvo is because that's what my children call me. And when we are in Spain and we see the tuna in the calvo, they wanted to take my photo holding the calvo. I'll show you that photo later. So calvo is bald. So the bald eagle will be el, al-aggila calvo.

Very bien. El Agila Calva. And this is a collocation so we cannot move it. We cannot say La Calva Agila

because it's a collocation so no. Yeah, we need to stick in that order. Okay. Now how do we say the best water? The best water.

Okay, so it's El Agua we've established and if we put, hang on, so the best water, that would have to be La Mejor Agua Yes, yes, yes, perfect.

La, mejor, A good. Very good. Can I just add something more challenging? So a challenge on the challenge on the challenge. Yes, just something else. Okay. So if I want to say small classroom,

but I'm not saying, Pequeño, I'm not using that, I'm using Ito Ita. So Aulita. Well, can I try to extrapolate the, what's going on here? If you said Aolita, the stress is no longer,

on the ah of aula. Very bien. So would we just say La Aulita? That is. Oh, you got me. I'm pleased that I managed to to work that one out.

So La Aulita. But La Pequeña Aula or El Aula Pekeña.

That is, perfect. Very bien. I think we should leave it there. Yes. Now we hope that you have enjoyed this lesson and that you now understand a little more about how these interesting changes and these surprising changes work when it comes to using words like Agua, Aola and so on. And if you'd like a written version of this, we've got a blog article which explains everything and the link

is in the description. Also, if you like more help with your Spanish, remember that you can get some regular free email lessons. And in order to just like get that, you need to go and visit coffeebreaklanguages.com slash Spanish. You will indeed get lots of interesting information. We send out lessons about all sorts of different aspects of learning Spanish, about grammar, about culture, about vocabulary, expressions, and so on. So just make sure you sign up for our email. Now, you can look out for that mini lesson in your inbox very soon,

but for now we're going to leave it there. No, yes. Good job to all. Yes, thank you. A tea, too, to usoters. And until the next. Happy coffee breaking. to a coffee break languages production for the RadioLingua Network.

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