In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. There several rules which help to identify a given object's gender; for example, nouns that end in a - like "manzana" (apple) - are almost always feminine, while nouns that end in o - like "bolígrafo" (pen) - are almost always masculine. (Learn more: Spanish nouns)
To make things even more interesting, each gender has its own set of articles, those little words - the, a, an, some - that essentially introduce a noun and say a little something about it. While in English you can simply apply the same articles - the, a, an, some - to all nouns, in Spanish there are distinctions between masculine and feminine as well as between singular and plural.
Definite Articles / Artículos definidos
Definite articles (the) refer to a specific object (the apple or the pen). Check out a few examples:
| Article - English | Article - Spanish | Noun - English | Noun - Spanish | |
| masculine, singular | the | el | the pen | el bolígrafo |
| masculine, plural | the | los | the pens | los bolígrafos |
| feminine, singular | the | la | the apple | la manzana |
| feminine, plural | the | las | the apples | las manzanas |
Indefinite Articles / Artículos indefinidos
Indefinite articles (a, an, some), on the other hand, refer to an unspecified object (an apple or a pen ).
| Article - English | Article - Spanish | Noun - English | Noun - Spanish | |
| masculine, singular | a, an | un | a pen | un bolígrafo |
| masculine, plural | some | unos | some pens | unos bolígrafos |
| feminine, singular | a, an | una | an apple | una manzana |
| feminine, plural | some | unas | some apples | unas manzanas |