As much as I hate many aspects of English—especially the fact that it's not phonetic—the fact that most of our words have neutral gender is a very strong plus. There is absolutely no reason that I should have to remember that "agua" has masculine gender, despite ending with "a", but inexplicably uses a feminine definite article.
Completely unrelated, but "agua" isn't actually masculine, it just takes "el" because it begins with a stressed "a" sound (like el hacha, el águila). That's why you say "agua fría", not "agua frío".
As much as I hate many aspects of English—especially the fact that it's not phonetic—the fact that most of our words have neutral gender is a very strong plus. There is absolutely no reason that I should have to remember that "agua" has masculine gender, despite ending with "a", but inexplicably uses a feminine definite article.
Completely unrelated, but "agua" isn't actually masculine, it just takes "el" because it begins with a stressed "a" sound (like el hacha, el águila). That's why you say "agua fría", not "agua frío".
Dang, this makes much more sense than the dozens of exceptions I have been accumulating.