This has to be your priority when choosing your articles, your nouns and even your adjectives. If you ignore grammatical agreement you will definitely sound like a lazy foreigner who does not even try. And you do not want that! We will start with the noun. We will use the noun casa house , which is feminine and singular. Now we need to find an indefinite article that is also feminine and singular.
Think about it, there is only an option… yes! Una is what we were looking for, and that gives us Una casa a house. We can now add an adjective. I love the color yellow, so our adjective will be amarillo. But, wait a second! We need a feminine, singular adjective so that it can agree with our noun and our article. We can follow the rules of gendered adjective endings and we get amarilla.
That gives us Una casa amarilla A yellow house. Add a verb, an object or whatever you need to build a complete sentence, and the result may look like this:. Hay una casa amarilla cerca de la piscina. There is a yellow house near the swimming pool. And that, ladies and gentlemen and gender-neutral friends, is how you create agreement in a sentence.
Never forget! However, there is one very small group of words that are an exception to the agreement rules stated above. The agreement rule specifically says that if a noun is feminine and singular, the indefinite article you have to use is una.
As you can clearly see, these nouns keep on being feminine, and the adjectives they accept can only be feminine. Early in this post, we explained that indefinite articles are required when you are discussing something or someone that has yet to be specified or is not familiar to everyone you are talking to. There are also some special contexts that always require an indefinite article in Spanish , which we will cover below.
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When talking about an unspecified person or object inside a group, we have to use the indefinite article. This happens simply because we are randomly picking up one item of the group as an example in order to represent all of the items in the group.
Un cocinero es una persona que cocina. A cook is a person who cooks. We are not talking about a specific cook called Gordon who lives in Manhattan. We are talking about an unidentified cook who represents the whole group of cooks in the world. A book can have many pages. Once again, we are not talking about a specific book, but about any book. Our book is like a joker that represents all the books in existence.
When describing people with a noun, the indefinite article is used. This is not because we do not know the person or the person is unspecified, but because we believe the person is one in a group of others like them.
Interestingly enough, the majority of times we will use a masculine noun and the corresponding masculine article even for describing women:. Eres un sol. You are a sweetie. We also have to use the indefinite article when we describe something or someone by using a noun plus an adjective.
Ana es una mujer muy guapa. Ana is a very beautiful woman. Esta rosa es una flor delicada. This rose is a delicate flower. Cancer is a very dangerous disease. Another situation when we use the indefinite article is actually identical both in Spanish and English, and that is when we are talking about a single unit one of something or of somebody, as you will see in the examples.
He comprado tan solo un regalo. I have only bought one present. There is one child in the kitchen. Tengo una hermana. I have one sister.
Dime una palabra polaca. Tell me one Polish word. As we saw before, the Spanish indefinite article has two plural forms unos, unas. Today I was at the market and asked a vendor for "uno pollo". I asked for "uno" because I wanted one not 2 or 3 chicken, not a un chicken. My girlfriend promptly corrected me and said the correct way was quiero un pollo. Food for thought. In English is there any difference in asking for "a chicken" or "one chicken"? I suggest that, not really.
As others have said "uno" is shortened to "un" before a masculine noun for the same reason. No difference. Fernando es una arrogante Fernanda is arrogant. These types of phrases are meant to intensify a quality or behavior in a person and we mainly use them in conversations. With this type of phrase, we pay more attention to the action or fact than the person who performed it. Al tener problemas, uno puede descubrir a sus verdaderos amigos When having troubles, a person can find their true friends.
Una tiene que encontrar la manera de divertirse One must find the way to have fun. Uno and una are also used to list nouns, including objects or reasons for doing something.
We can also use them to list people. Here are some examples that will help you understand this better:. Although their plural forms unos and unas have the same meanings, we also use them in different contexts.
Here are some examples to help you understand this. Hay unos perros afuera de mi casa There are some dogs out of my house. Another way that we can use unos and unas is to give an approximation of the number of things. Additionally, be aware that in this context, we only use unos and unas. Here are some examples as well as the phrase structure you need to use:. Creemos que faltaron unas doscientas personas We believe that about two hundred people were missing.
Hay unos dos o tres pedazos de pizza en el refrigerador There are about two or three slices of pizza in the fridge. Mi amigas son unas tontas My friends are so silly. Tus primos son unos llorones Your cousins are so whiny.
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