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I’ve wondered for a long time why languages have gendered articles.  Ever since my first encounter with the written Spanish language in seventh grade, I’ve not had a great answer for why a language would choose to split what could be one definite article into two (or more) articles. When I asked my Spanish teachers, they didn’t really know, and usually responded with unsatisfying or unconvincing answers. For a time, well actually until recently, either because of misinformation from my Spanish teachers or just from my own imagination, I believed that the gendering of each article that accompanies every noun had to do with that specific nouns characteristics.  That never made too much sense though. The contrary example that always came to mind was that the Spanish word for “dress” is “el vestido” - a masculine article and noun ending for quite a feminine object. Our in class discussion this past Friday on parts of speech, which included articles and the lack thereof in some lan

I have been out of Spanish class for a while now, not having taken Spanish since my high school level 3 Spanish class back in junior year. Now that I'm an SIS major, however, I have to take a language and why not take the one I have the best background in and that will likely be most useful? So I'm taking Spanish this semester. What I would never have guessed when I elected to take Spanish is that I would be placed in an Intermediate II course right off the bat. The whole course is taught in Spanish, and let me tell you, I'm a little more than a bit rusty on my Spanish. It's an absolute struggle to force myself to comprehend each instruction, and it's an absolute embarrassment when I can't understand an instruction and sit there looking busy until my professor comes over and has to explain to me what we're doing exactly. Being in this Spanish class has really increased my appreciation for International Students. To sit through just an hour and fifteen-minu