Hey, how’s it going?

Today let’s take a look at how the neutral gender article lo is used in Spanish. The thing is, in Spanish there are no neutral nouns, as it so happens in German, so we can’t use lo with nouns.

We use lo:

1. Before adjectives acting as nouns (in masculine singular form):

Lo interesante sería saber lo que piensa Laura. – The interesting thing would be to know what Laura thinks.
Lo malo es su falta de carácter. – The bad thing is his lack of character.
Lo peor de mi casa es el salón porque es muy pequeño. – The worst thing about my house is the living room because it’s very small.

2. Before adjectives, giving them an intensity aspect (lo + adjective + que):

Ya sabes lo buenas que son estas tortas. – You know how good these cakes are.
Todos comentaron lo divertida que fue la fiesta. – Everybody was talking about how fun the party was.
Fíjate lo guapo que está este chico. – Take a look at how handsome that guy is.
Le di lo inútil a mi hermano. – I gave my brother the useless stuff.

3. Before adverbs with the same intensifying function (lo + adverb + que):

Vio lo bien que se comía allí. – He saw how well you could eat there.
Mira lo mal que lo estoy pasando. – See what a bad time I’m having.

4. Followed by a relative clause:

No me creo lo que me cuentas. – I can’t believe what you’re telling me.
Siempre hace lo que tú dices. – He always does what you tell him to.
No logro decidir lo que es mejor. – I can’t decide what’s better.

5. To refer to a known event or circumstance:

Lo de Mario es algo muy serio. – The thing about Mario is very serious.
Lo de ayer es mejor que lo olvides. – You’d better forget what happened yesterday.
Lo de Ana es todo pretexto y mentiras. – Ana’s ways of doing things is all pretext and lies.

Lo is also used in some expressions:

a lo largo de – throughout
a lo lejos – in the distance
a lo loco – like crazy
a lo mejor – hopefully
por lo general – generally
por lo menos – at least
por lo pronto – for now
por lo tanto – as a result
por lo visto – apparently

This is it for today, see you guys next time!