La,   El,   “a”   or   “o“…

Cruising the web this morning exposed yet another gringo saying:
” “O” endings on words are masculine      😮 ”

This “gem” of wisdom came from a well experienced gringo who posts very regularly, claims over 20 years on & off in Mexico, and a guy who spins good “insider” yarns about hanging out with many of Merida’s elite, writing advice rich with personal ideas of Mexican/Yucatecan culture.

This little “gem” is particularly seductive, because it is so simple.
Easy to understand, easy to remember, and so easy to apply.
…

Have any readers considered that overly-simple gringo-Spanish rules might have caused your workers or store clerk to briefly look askance at you, and gotten you unexpected and sometimes frustrating results?
. . .

Unfortunately, expat assumptions that  “o”  endings means masculine & that  “a”  endings means feminine,  is a major cause of eye-rolling by knowledgeable Spanish speakers. Casual gringo usages of  “el”  and  “la”  also raise myriads of misunderstandings between good-intentioned gringos and their Spanish/Mexican listeners.

Briefly consider how “a” and “o” and “á” endings right can get gringos into no end of problems: . . .

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Full Article at: El, La, “a”, “o”: Easy as Pie? or Fraught with Confusion for Gringos?
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Feel free to copy while giving proper attribution: YucaLandia/Surviving Yucatan.
Steven M. Fry

Read-on MacDuff . . .