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La is used, however, when el would imply a masculine noun: la ácrata (because el ácrata would be a male anarchist) la árabe (because el árabe would be a male Arab, or the Arabic language) Feminine el is never used, however, before feminine adjectives that begin with a stressed a: la alta montaña = "the high mountain" la ancha calle = "the ...
It's also combined with the relative pronouns que and cual to form relative clauses, such as lo que dices, lo cual es cierto, and can also be followed by de, e.g. lo de Juan está aquí, lo de que estoy enfermo no es cierto. Bello also notes that words such as nada, poco, algo, and mucho can be used as neuters in some contexts.
For instance, the feminine form of el soldado 'the (male) soldier' is la soldado 'the (female) soldier', with only the gender of the article (el/la) distinguishing them in this case. For nouns of this class with the masculine form ending in -or , -ón , -ín , -és , and -án , the feminine form adds an -a .
The prepositions à (' to, at ') and de (' of, from ') form contracted forms with the masculine and plural articles le and les: au, du, aux, and des, respectively.. Like the, the French definite article is used with a noun referring to a specific item when both the speaker and the audience know what the item is.
For example, taza (cup) is feminine, so "the red cup" is la taza roja, but vaso (glass) is masculine, so "the red glass" is el vaso rojo. In Spanish, it is perfectly normal to let an adjective stand in for a noun or pronoun—with (where people are involved) no implication of condescension or rudeness.
Spanish studies scholar Daniel Eisenberg has noted that because the "use of archaic Spanish can give an impression of authority and wisdom", Latin American Spanish speakers will sometimes use vosotros to achieve a specific rhetorical effect; he observed that the notion "that vosotros is not used in Spanish America is one of the great myths of ...
Nowadays, the form of lequel is typically replaced with qui when the antecedent is a person: « la femme de qui j'ai parlé ». Further, if the preposition is de , even if it is not the de of the possession, dont has started to be used (with both person and non-person antecedents): « la femme dont j'ai parlé ».
As in other languages, the masculine word is typically unmarked and only the feminine form requires use of a suffix added to the root to mark it. Feminine forms of German nouns are usually created by adding -in to the root, which corresponds to the masculine form. For example, the root for secretary is the masculine form Sekretär.