EL & LA MISTAKES

You were in a restaurant and you asked for "la pez" instead of "el pez".    Surely no harm until the waiter brings you a big bowl of steaming tar!  Now chances are that since you were in a restaurant the waiter would know that you meant to order "fish" (el pez) and not "tar" (la pez).  But just in case you want to make sure that you are correctly understood look at the list of words below and see how important it can be to know the correct form of a word.

el busca - beeper/pager
la busca - search
el capital - capital (money)
la capital - capital (city)
el canal - canal, TV channel
la canal - gutter
el coma - coma
la coma - comma
el cometa - comet
la cometa - kite
el cólera - cholera
la cólera - anger
el corte - cut, edge
la corte - court
el cura - priest
la cura - cure
el doblez - fold/crease
la doblez - duplicity
el frente - front (war)
la frente - forehead
el guía - guide (person)
la guía - guide (book)
el moral - mulberry tree
la moral - moral
el orden - order (arrangement), (law and ) order
la orden - order (command)
el pendiente - earring
la pendiente - slope
el policía - policeman
la policía - police (force)
el vocal - member of a board
la vocal - vowel

Adapted from "1001 Pitfalls in Spanish"

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