Beginners Spanish Course-Chapter 1 Questions

Greetings, I got the course relatively recently and after having finished the Chapter 1 questions I have 6 questions concerning the material on Chapter 1: 1) This is respect to Page 40, Exercise 1, where one has to fill in either el, la, los or las. The particular question is for ____ atleta is rapido (can't put the accent on o here). I put "La" because of the a at the end of atleta. The answer given is "El". I don't know why it is "El" since the course material doesn't address, at least I haven't seen it. Please help here. 2) This is respect to Page 40, Exercise 2, where one has to fill in either un, una, unos or unas. Specifically number 9 where we have ____ perros ladran. As I understand page 15, when one has "perros" one would use "unos" and if the word had been "perras" one would use "unas". The answer given is both "unos" and "unas". That would be true if the phrase had been "____perros o perras ladran". Please explain here. 3) Same page and exercise as question #2 above, specifically dealing with numbers 11 & 12. The phrases are "____estudiante estudia" (#11) and "____habitantes viven aqui (#12). I didn't see anything in Chapter One that addressed how to handle estudia and habitates with respect to gender. The answer given in the back was "unos/unas" but I don't know why that is the answer?? 4) How does one know when trying to do this exercise, which nouns have both a masculine and feminine part? 5) Just a note on Exercise 3 page 41, In the instructions it is stated that "Two words will be left unused". I found three words left unused, "ser", "es", and esta(can't put the accent on) and this seems to agree with the answers in the back. 6) This is respect to Exercise 5, page 42, where the times are given for 8:45 and 10:45 (Don't know if AM or PM here). The answer given for both of these is "Es cuarto para las nueve" and "Es cuarto para las once". Why is this not instead, "Son las cuarto para las nueve" and "Son las cuarto para las once" since none of these times are 1:00 where "Es" should be used per page 31. And I also understand in one of your earlier answers to my question on page 32 that the statement given here, "Que hora es? (3:45)-"Es cuarto para las cuatro" should have been instead "Son las cuarto para las cuatro". Thank you for time and help here. Henk

[quote="haroelant"]Greetings, I got the course relatively recently and after having finished the Chapter 1 questions I have 6 questions concerning the material on Chapter 1: 1) This is respect to Page 40, Exercise 1, where one has to fill in either el, la, los or las. The particular question is for ____ atleta is rapido (can't put the accent on o here). I put "La" because of the a at the end of atleta. The answer given is "El". I don't know why it is "El" since the course material doesn't address, at least I haven't seen it. Please help here. Hola Henk. I'll try to answer your questions. Your first question is a good one. I don't know why the book offers only "el" and not "el/la," since "atleta" can be either masculine or feminine, as you can see if you look at the vocabulary list on the pages that precede the exercises. (I should add that although it is often the case that nouns ending in "a" are feminine, that is not _always_ true. E.g., el problema, el idioma) 2) This is respect to Page 40, Exercise 2, where one has to fill in either un, una, unos or unas. Specifically number 9 where we have ____ perros ladran. As I understand page 15, when one has "perros" one would use "unos" and if the word had been "perras" one would use "unas". The answer given is both "unos" and "unas". That would be true if the phrase had been "____perros o perras ladran". Please explain here. Take another look at the answers--I think you'll find that the answer to number 9 is listed as "unos." 3) Same page and exercise as question #2 above, specifically dealing with numbers 11 & 12. The phrases are "____estudiante estudia" (#11) and "____habitantes viven aqui (#12). I didn't see anything in Chapter One that addressed how to handle estudia and habitates with respect to gender. The answer given in the back was "unos/unas" but I don't know why that is the answer?? First of all, once again the vocabulary list that precedes the exercises indicates that both "estudiante" and "habitante" can be either masculine or feminine. And the answers in the back bear this out: the answer to #11 is un/una and the answer to #12 is unos/unas. 4) How does one know when trying to do this exercise, which nouns have both a masculine and feminine part? The nouns (with gender) are listed in the long vocabulary list that precedes the exercises. 5) Just a note on Exercise 3 page 41, In the instructions it is stated that "Two words will be left unused". I found three words left unused, "ser", "es", and esta(can't put the accent on) and this seems to agree with the answers in the back. Apparently the book is counting "es" as having been used since it's used in the example at the start of the exercise. I agree that that's a little confusing. 6) This is respect to Exercise 5, page 42, where the times are given for 8:45 and 10:45 (Don't know if AM or PM here). The answer given for both of these is "Es cuarto para las nueve" and "Es cuarto para las once". Why is this not instead, "Son las cuarto para las nueve" and "Son las cuarto para las once" since none of these times are 1:00 where "Es" should be used per page 31. And I also understand in one of your earlier answers to my question on page 32 that the statement given here, "Que hora es? (3:45)-"Es cuarto para las cuatro" should have been instead "Son las cuarto para las cuatro". I'm not sure, but I think that one uses "es" rather than "son" before "cuarto" because "cuarto" is singular (a quarter), whereas all the hours except for una are plural (una hora, dos horas, tres horas, etc.) and therefore need the plural "son." I hope this helps (and I hope my answers are correct :D )

Hola Henk, I think Nohablo has given you great advise. All she has said is correct. Thank you for pointing out all this problems, I will go back into the book and see if I can make things a bit more clear and maybe fix up some of the errors. All the best and keep up the good work. Mauricio.

Thank you both for your replies. This does help. Henk