I am confused as to when I should use la or el. For example:

Question

Mi televisor es peor que el televisor de mi hermano. Es _______________de la casa.

a) la peor

b) el peor

Each means "the worst" and I am guessing that I use el peor since televisor is male (I think).

Any help with this would be great. My book does not do a good job with explainig the use of el, la los, and las.

Thanks

Answer 1

In that sentence peor has to agree with televisor which is masculine. Therefore it would be el peor.

El and Los are masculine articles.

La and Las are feminine articles.

The article has to agree with the noun that it modifies. el gato, la mesa.

Answer 2

Here is a site on that

http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/genoun1.htm

Answer 3

¡Hola,Lucy! What this actually is is "Nominalization with the definite article." You name something (a noun) with the typical gender that goes with that noun and then delete the noun, using an adjective. Some examples:

el libro = es el peor de la biblioteca

la casa = es la peor del barrio

los libros = son los peores de la biblioteca

las casas = son las peores del barrio.

This nominalization can also occur with infinitives and clause relator "que" + a verb.

Sra

Answer 4

P.S. I nearly forgot the prepositional phrase = definite article + de + phrase
(Examples): (libro) el de María es peor.
(casa) la de mi barrio es peor

(los libros) los de esta clase son peores

(las casas) las de su pueblo son peores

Sra

Summary: 1) definite article + adjective
2) definite article + que + verb phrase
3) definite article + de + prepositional phrase
4) definite article + infinitive

Answer 5

This really helped alot!! Thanks.

Answer 6

Thanks for the website. It will really help me alot!

Thanks.