The Spanish language distinguishes two types of definite articles: masculine and feminine.
As you may have guessed, there are two grammatical gender in Spanish – masculine and feminine.

The definite article comes together with a noun and adopts to this noun in grammatical gender (masculine, feminine) and number (singular, plural).

Definite article in Spanish – singular

The definite article for masculine nouns in Spanish is “el” – and “la” for all feminine nouns.

1. Nouns starting with a stressed a- or ha-sound, take the definite article “el”.

   💡 For example:
   el agua (f) – water
   el hada (f) – fairy
   el águila (f) – eagle

2. If the definite article comes together with the preposition “a” (to, at, in, on, with, for) or “de” (from, at, over), both merge and form “al” or “del”.
   This is best explained with two examples.

   💡 For example:
   al [a + el] cine – to the cinema
   del [de + el] colegio – from school

There also exists a neutral definite article “lo” in Spanish.
You will only encounter it together with adjectives that are turned into and used as nouns.

Definite article in Spanish – plural

Now, let's take a look at the plural forms of the definite article in Spanish.
Masculine nouns take “los” as definite article in the plural.
The plural form of the definite article for feminine nouns in Spanish is “las”.