ABSTRACT
An article – un articulo – is a type of word that precedes a noun and signals whether that noun refers to a specific element, or to an unspecified one. In Spanish the article is used on many occasions when in English a possessive. In Spain, the definite article is not used with the word casa when it means 'home', although in Spanish America it is. Indefinite articles – los articulos indefinidos – are used to refer to an element that is not specific; in English ‘a’/‘an’ is the indefinite article. In Spanish, the indefinite article has singular, plural, masculine and feminine forms, and it has to agree in number and gender with the noun it accompanies: un nino, una nina, unos ninos, unas ninas. The definite article is also used in many expressions that refer to times, dates and periods, and some of these are often different from the way they are used in English.
