Los and Las: Number of Nouns

You already know that in Spanish, all nouns are have grammatical gender, and they are either masculine or feminine.

You know that el is the for masculine words (most end in -o) and la is the for feminine words (most end in -a, -dad, -tad, -tud, -ción or -sión).

There are two more words for the:

  • los which is the plural form of el

    el librothe book
los libros    the books

  • las which is the plural form of la

El, la, los and las are called definite articles.


In Spanish, besides having grammatical gender, all nouns have number. Nouns in Spanish are either singular (one) or plural (more than one):

  • El and la are singular.

    Los and las are plural.


If we combine the qualities of grammatical gender and number, we get the following:

  • El is the masculine and singular definite article.
    La is the feminine and singular definite article.
    Los is the masculine and plural definite article.
    Las is the feminine and plural definite article.


Remember: El, la, los and las all mean the.
Back to Main Menu