The article lo - Easy Learning Grammar Spanish
- Unlike the other Spanish articles, and articles in English, lo is NOT used with a noun.
- lo can be used with a masculine singular adjective or past participle (the -ado and -ido forms of regular verbs) to form a noun.
| Lo único que no me gusta ... | The only thing I don’t like ... |
| Esto es lo importante. | That’s the important thing. |
| Lo bueno de eso es que … | The good thing about it is that … |
| Sentimos mucho lo ocurrido. | We are very sorry about what happened. |
- For more information on the Past participle, see The perfect tense.
- lo is also used in a number of very common phrases:
| • | a lo mejor | maybe, perhaps |
| A lo mejor ha salido. | Perhaps he’s gone out. | |
| • | por lo menos | at least |
| Hubo por lo menos cincuenta heridos. | At least fifty people were injured. | |
| • | por lo general | generally |
| Por lo general me acuesto temprano. | I generally go to bed early. |
- lo can also be used with que to make lo que (meaning what).
| Vi lo que pasó. | I saw what happened. |
| Lo que más me gusta es nadar. | What I like best is swimming. |
Grammar Extra!lo can be used with de followed by a noun phrase to refer back to something the speaker and listener both know about.
lo can be used with an adjective followed by que to emphasize how big/small/beautiful and so on something is or was. The adjective must agree with the noun it describes.
lo can also be used in a similar way with an adverb followed by que.
| Lo de tu hermano me preocupa mucho. | That business with your brother worries me a lot. |
| Lo de ayer es mejor que lo olvides. | It would be best to forget what happened yesterday. |
| No sabíamos lo pequeña que era la casa. | We didn’t know how small the house was. |
| No te imaginas lo simpáticos que son. | You can’t imagine how nice they are. |
| Sé lo mucho que te gusta la música. | I know how much you like music. |
Key points
PreviousNext - lo is classed as an article in Spanish, but is not used with nouns.
- You can use lo with a masculine adjective or past participle to form a noun.
- You also use lo in a number of common phrases.
- lo que can be used to mean what in English.