Afonso Fernandez Nogueira afonso at writeme.com
Thu Feb 14 09:51:01 EST 2002

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>Gustavo Cordova <gcordova at hebmex.com> graced us by uttering:
>> And also "agua" which seems female, but it's a male subject: "el agua".

>IIRC, "agua" _is_ feminine, but takes the masculine article when
>singular. Mi diccionario dice que "agua" es feminina, también.

>OTOH, la palabra "mar" es masculina _y_ feminina. Por ejemplo:
>
>   "el agua en la mar"     # Correct
>    "las aguas del mar"     # Correct

Right. "Agua" is feminine, but takes the masculine article in singular just to avoid the cacophony of the two consecutive a's.

"La _ agua" is considered difficult to say and/or ugly in Spanish, as you can't merge the sounds together as if in Catalan "L'aigua".

But this doesn't apply to every word starting with "a", only in a few cases.

almost-zero-python-knowledge-but-eager-to-share-email-address-with-spammers'ly yours
fonso

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