English/Spanish Exchange

El instead of La

One of the first things a beginner Spanish student learns is that the definite article¹ must agree in gender and number with the noun that it refers to. El and los are used for masculine nouns, whereas la and las for feminine ones.

However, there’s a phenomenon you need to know about: when a singular feminine noun that begins with a stressed ‘a’ sound^2,3 is preceded directly by a definite article you must use el instead of la. For example, el agua, el alma, el águila, and el hacha.

According to the RAE,⁴ even though this form is identical to the masculine article, it’s actually a formal variant of the feminine article. In fact, this feminine el does not have the same origin as the masculine el. The latter is from the Old Castilian ele, whereas the former is from ela, just as is la.

You must keep in mind that these nouns are feminine, thus everything but the singular article must agree with them, including: adjectives, pronouns and the plural article las. Therefore, we say el agua fría, las hachas, and el alma mía. And don’t forget the rule only applies when there’s no word between the article and the noun. So we say el águila dorada but la hermosa águila. Another observation worthy of remark is that this rule doesn’t take effect on derived words where the stress no longer falls on the initial ‘a’ sound. For example, you must say la agüita, because the stress is on the second syllable.

There are few exceptions to this rule:

1. The names of the following letters: la a and la hache
2. Before female proper names when an article is required. e.g. Ya no es la Ana con quien solía divertirme.
3. When the word is used to refer to both sexes, and the definite article is the only way to tell them apart. e.g. el árabe (masculine), la árabe (feminine).
4. Regarding places names, the names of the continents use el (el África, el Asia), whereas the names of countries and cities use la (La Haya, La Austria).

Although the RAE⁵ does not consider incorrect the use of una, alguna and ninguna in front of these words, most Spanish speakers will usually change them for their apocopated forms⁶ –which is also considered correct grammar. Hence, it is common to see constructions such as: un hada madrina, algún ave, ningún arma. On the other hand, you must always use the feminine forms of este, ese, aquel or any other determiner such todo, mucho, poco, otro, etc.

Finally, let’s take a look at two unusual words: azúcar⁷ and arte.[8Arte – Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas de la Real Academia Española. – http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?lema=arte] The former is a very special case. Its a is unstressed, and yet it can follow the above rule. So, you can say el azúcar refinada (el azúcar refinado and la azúcar refinada are also possible). Now, regarding arte, the RAE states its gender is ambiguous. However, it’s usually used as a masculine noun in singular and as a feminine one in plural. Thus, we say el arte moderno but las bellas artes.

El voseo

A topic often neglected in courses of Spanish is that of el voseo, or the use of vos as a familiar form of address for the second person in the singular. This is used in about a dozen different countries in Central and South America,¹ and it is another subject where there is wide regional variation in its use. In some areas it does not exist at all, in others it completely replaces tú, and in yet others it coexists with both tú and usted. In some regions the pronoun is used but with the tú forms of verbs; in others it goes with its own inflected forms. And to further complicate matters, the way that these inflections are formed also varies greatly.^2,3 Given such complexities in its use, we’ll limit ourselves here to illustrating some of the grammatical aspects of only a single form of voseo, namely that accepted as the standard in Argentina. But before doing that, however, we’ll take a brief look at the interesting history of this feature of the language.

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Spanish Variations

The main choice facing learners of English is whether to learn American or British English.¹ It’s not only about the accent… there are also differences in spelling, grammar and vocabulary.² As Oscar Wilde said:

“We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.”³

Now, if there are such differences between these two countries (US/UK), imagine how many regional variations we can find in Spanish, which is an official language in 21 countries!⁴
To mention one of these, one word can have different meanings depending on the country where it is used. Spanish speakers may be acquainted with their country’s own usage of the word, but be unaware of its connotations in other countries!

For example, in Guatemala we call money pisto. But in Mexico pisto is a drunk. And in Spain pisto is a sauce made of tomato, pepper, egg and onion. Imagine trying to say ‘the drunk bought some sauce with the money he had left’!

The same goes for idiomatic expressions. Consider al chile, for example. In Guatemala this means ‘very fast’. In Costa Rica, it means ‘Really?’.

We’ve got different ways to say the same thing, too. For example, the word for ‘cheat sheet’ or ‘crib sheet’ varies from place to place. It is chuleta in Spain and Venezuela, torpedo in Chile, chivo in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guatemala; droga, droguita, bate, and nota in Puerto Rico; acordeón in Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua; chafa in Mexico, chepe in Honduras, forro in Cuba and Costa Rica, copiain El Salvador and Nicaragua, batería in Panama, pastel in Colombia, polla in Ecuador, plagio and compromido in Peru, chanchullo in Bolivia, copiatini in Paraguay, ferrocarril and trencito in Uruguay, and machete in Argentina.⁵

Finally, we’ve got some spelling variations. There’s a word that the RAE⁶ includes in its dictionary with four possible spellings: ceviche, cebiche, seviche, and sebiche! Spelling varies from country to country, but all of them refer to the same thing: a South American dish of marinated raw fish or seafood, typically garnished and served as an appetizer.

So, you might be asking yourself, which Spanish should you learn?

If you’re going to be using a particular variety of Spanish, pick the one which will be most useful to you. If you’re moving to Puerto Rico, learn Puerto Rican Spanish; if you’ve got Argentinian relatives or friends, then Argentinan Spanish will be the best to study; if you’re right on the border between the US and Mexico, you’ll probably want to learn a mixture of Chicano and Mexican Spanish; and if your business frequently takes you to Madrid, then that’s the variety you ought to pay the most attention to.

If you don’t know any speakers of a particular variety of Spanish, you’d be best to stick to standard vocabulary. For example, in all Spanish speaking countries money is dinero. Forget about pisto (or lana or pasta or plata!).