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Ellas leen nuestras cartas. = They read our letters.
Why in the above sentence we cannot put
nuestros
instead of
nuestras
What is the grammatical rule that makes it nuestras?
Similarly in the other sentence:
Nuestras gatas beben leche.
Why cannot it be nuestros in both the sentences above and in what case nuestros apply?
In Spanish, adjectives must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.
Esos gatos blancos (masculine, plural)
Esa gata blanca (feminine, singular)
However, gender agreement is not always need in the possessive and numbers, since usually no male / female distinction, except in nuestro/nuestra, which does make the distinction.
Then, possessive adjectives list is:
Also considers that plural male (mis gatos, tus gatos, sus gatos, nuestros gatos) can be used to refer only to males or couples or groups of male and female cats.
In Spain, the male / female difference also exists in the second person (vuestro, vuestra, vuestros, vuestras). In Latin America this adjective does not exist and instead form su - sus is repeated.
Nuestras is "femenine" and Nuestros is "masculine". So in
Ellas leen nuestras cartas.
Cartas is femenine so should nuestras
But in
Nuestras gatas beben leche.
gatas means female cats, but if you want male cats would be
Nuestros gatos beben leche.
Note that it changes the gender of the cats too.
