Lección 2
Gender of Nouns in Spanish. Indefinite Article
Audio 1:
¿Qué es esto? Esto es
Esto es una mesa. Eso es una lámpara . Y aquello es una silla. Esto es una pluma. Eso es una ventana. Y aquello es una butaca. Esto es un armario. Eso es un piano. Y aquello es un teléfono.
Audio 2:
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Vocablos - Vocabulary
| ¿qué? | [ke] | what? | |
| es | [es] | is | |
| esto | [ˈesto] | this | |
| eso | [ˈeso] | that | |
| aquello | [aˈkeʝo] | that (farther than ‘eso’) | |
| y | [i] | and | |
| una | mesa | [ˈmesa] | table |
| una | lámpara | [ˈlampara] | lamp |
| una | silla | [ˈsiʝa] | chair |
| una | pluma | [ˈpluma] | pen, quill |
| un | bolígrafo | [boˈligrafo] | (ballpoint) pen, short form: boli |
| una | ventana | [benˈtana] | window |
| una | butaca | [buˈtaka] | armchair |
| un | armario | [arˈmarjo] | closet, wardrobe |
| un | piano | [ˈpjano] | piano |
| un | teléfono | [teˈlefono] | telephone, phone; teléfono móvil [ˈmoβil] — mobile phone |
| una | lección | [lekˈθjon] | lesson |
| Lección primera [lekˈθjon priˈmera] the first lesson. | |||
| Lección segunda [lekˈθjon seˈgunda] the second lesson. | |||
Notes
If you can’t read the text above, it means that you missed the previous lesson. How could you do it? It was the 1st lesson! You can’t skip lessons here, go back immediately! or I’ll tell you parents! (just kidding)
This self-study course has two peculiarities:
- The course is very old (originally). It means that sometimes you’ll see some outdated information or words. It came from Poland to Russia with tons of mistakes and misprints, but don’t freak out: first of all, it was corrected (and it will be, if something comes up), especially the pronunciation lesson (some of the old words still here, just ignore them if it’s an issue to you); secondly, thousands of people finished this course and they don’t regret it, there must be a good reason for that! (because it’s a good book).
- ‘to Russia,’ you say? Yes, this is a translation from Russian. Have you noticed yet? No? It means that the translation is good :)
Compare the following
Expressions
in Spanish
in English
* In Spanish, question and exclamation marks are written twice: at the beginning and at the end of sentences or (!) clauses. At the beginning they get the inverted forms: ¿ ¡
Grammar points
1. Gender of Nouns
Unlike English, nouns in Spanish have two genders: masculine and feminine. Only two, but you need to respect their choice (sorry if it was a sensitive joke). I mean, you should remember if a noun is masculine or feminine.
| masc. | / | armario (closet) | fem. | / | mesa (table) |
| \ | piano (piano) | \ | silla (chair) |
Many masculine nouns end in -o, while
feminine nouns end in -a.
But keep in mind that it’s not always the case.
2. Indefinite articles (artículos indeterminados)
Like English, Spanish also has articles. Let’s glance only at indefinite articles in this lesson (because for Russians that was too much already, they don’t have articles, but they were happy with genders). However, note that the Spanish article (artículo) also denotes the gender, for example:
| un armario | \ | m. | una lámpara | \ | f. |
| un piano | / | una mesa | / |
The article un comes before masculine nouns: un armario — a closet;
the article una comes before feminine nouns: una lámpara — a lamp.
Exercises
I. Fill in the blanks with an appropriate indefinite article:
Esto es mesa. Esto es silla. Esto es lámpara. Esto es piano. Esto es ventana. Esto es armario. Esto es pluma. Esto es butaca. Esto es teléfono.
II. Translate into Spanish:
This is a pen. This is a closet. This is a chair. That is a window. This is a piano. This is a table. This is a lamp. That is an armchair. And that is a phone.
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