Spanish: An Essential Grammar

Note: The article would generally not be used after de‘of’ when the reference is not

to the language as a whole: un curso de inglés, ‘an English course’.

The definite article is omittedbefore unqualified names of languages after

the preposition en‘in’, and after the verbs aprender ‘to learn’, hablar‘to

speak’ and saber ‘to know’.

This practice is common (but not obligatory) when stating other associated

activities such as entender‘to understand’, enseñar ‘to teach’, and estudiar

‘to study’:

Está escrito en quechua. It is written in Quechua.

Está aprendiendo holandés He is learning Dutch and he

y entiende (el) inglés. understands English.

Note: The article may be inserted if an adverb separates the verb from the language

name: No hablo correctamente (el) portugués‘I don’t speak Portuguese correctly’.

A language name alwaysrequires an article (definite or indefinite) if it is

qualified by a word or phrase:

en el francés antiguo in old French

Habla un español tradicional. She speaks a traditional sort of

Spanish.

The indefinite article

General use of the indefinite article

In general terms, the use of the singular indefinite article (un/una) to refer

to someone or something not yet known or not specifically identified is

similar to English:

Un niño se me acercó. A boy came up to me.

The plural forms unosand unasare used with plural nouns in a similar

way (often translating English ‘some’):

He comprado unos libros. I’ve bought some books.

3.3.1

3.3

3.2.3.2

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1011

1

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20111

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30111

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40

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Definite and
indefinite
articles

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