📖LearnModule 15 · Lesson 24 of 30Proficient User · CEFR C2 mastery — the capstoneUnit 5 · La gramática de la precisión
Leísmo, laísmo y el género
Module 15 of the free Spanish course (CEFR C2 mastery — the capstone), lesson 24 of 30: Fourth: the pronoun and the gender. On this page: 11 words with their genders and respellings, the rule, a watch-out line, the conjugation table and the audio — the study notes behind the workbook's QR.
The words
Spanish
English
Say it
lo vi ayer
I saw him yesterday
loh bee ah-YEHR
le vi ayer
I saw him yesterday (Spain, leísmo)
leh bee ah-YEHR
el leísmo
the use of le for lo
ehl leh-EES-moh
el laísmo
the use of la for le (an error)
ehl lah-EES-moh
el sistema
the system
ehl sees-TEH-mah
la moto
the motorcycle
lah MOH-toh
el aguafeminine — takes el before its stressed a, like el agua
the water
ehl AH-gwah
el género del sustantivo
the gender of the noun
ehl HEH-neh-roh dehl soos-tahn-TEE-boh
sin excepción
without exception
seen ehk-sehp-SYOHN
contraintuitivo
counterintuitive
kohn-trah-een-twee-TEE-boh
yo vi la moto ayer
I saw the motorcycle yesterday
yoh bee lah MOH-toh ah-YEHR
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
La regla · The rule
Fourth: the pronoun and the gender. Lo vi ayer is the standard for I saw him; le vi ayer is the leísmo of central Spain, accepted for a man and not for a thing. La dije que no — laísmo, la for le — is an error everywhere. Write lo and la for the direct object, le for the indirect, and you are never wrong.
Y también · And also
Gender still leaks: el sistema, el problema, el idioma, el mapa are masculine; la mano, la moto, la foto are feminine; el agua takes el and is feminine — las aguas. Nouns in -ción, -sión, -dad and -tud are feminine almost without exception.
Ojo · Watch out
lo vi (standard) and le vi (Spain, for a man) are both accepted; la dije que no is not — write le. el agua, el aula are feminine and take el only in the singular: las aguas, las aulas. Nouns in -ción, -sión, -dad and -tud are feminine.
ver, pretérito — the table
yo vi · tú viste · él/ella/usted vio · nosotros vimos · ustedes vieron · ellos/ellas vieron
Do it now — on paper
Say all 11 words aloud twice from the respelling, then once from the Spanish spelling alone — begin with lo vi ayer.
Copy every word with its accents on paper; then cover the English column and write each meaning back from the Spanish.
Write out ver, pretérito in full from memory, every person, and check each form against the table above.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The Spanish Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Keep these words
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.