una de ordenadores

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that inSpanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as eithermasculine or feminine. "House,'' for instance, is feminine:''la casa.'' ''Pencil,'' however, is masculine: "el lapiz.''A student asked, ''What gender is 'computer'?''Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split theclass into two groups, male and female,and asked them to decide for themselves whether''computer'' should be a masculine or a feminine noun.Each group was asked to give four reasons for itsrecommendation.The men's group decided that ''computer'' shoulddefinitely be of the feminine gender (''la computadora'') because:1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;2. The native language they use to communicate withother computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long termmemory for possible later retrieval; and4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you findyourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.The women's group, however, concluded that computersshould be masculine (''el computador'') because:1. In order to do anything with them, you have toturn them on;2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, buthalf the time they ARE the problem; and4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that ifyou had waited a little longer, you could have gota better model.

articles

'article' is the name given to 'the' and 'a'.
'The' is definite article because we know the one or ones we are talking about.
'A' is called indefinite article because we are not referring to a definite thing or person.
In Spanish the word for 'a' changes according to whether the noun is masculine or feminine:

un hermano (a brother)
una madre (a mother)

the word for 'the' also changes to show singular or plural as well:

el hermano (the brother) los hermanos (the brothers)
la madre (the mother) las madres (the mothers)


funny fact: a+el= al (to the) and de+el= del (of the/from the) are the only two occasions when two words merge into one in Spanish.