How do you translate "the first Easter Hare" correctly?
Someone (a native) told me:
La pimer liebre de Pascua
but I think it must be:
La primera liebre de Pascua
Since it's a female hare, but i am not sure if that makes any difference.
Spanish Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, teachers, students and Spanish language enthusiasts in general wanting to discuss the finer points of the language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this communityIf you look for "liebre" in the dictionary
liebre
- f. Mamífero del orden [...]
That f
there tells you that it's a feminine noun (if you hover over it it will display "nombre femenino"), so you'll use "primera" and not "primer" with "liebre".
It is a feminine noun, which means we use it both for male and female hares
La liebre macho es más alta y roja que la liebre hembra, que suele ser más pequeña y blanca.
(this is not actually true, but I just wanted to point out that I used female adjetives in all cases, because the noun is feminine, regardless of the actual gender of the animal)
Notice that, unless some exception cases, you'll say
El primer X (being X a masculine noun)
or
La primera Y (being Y a feminine noun)
Adjectives must agree in gender with the noun (except some exception cases).
As Alvalongo explains in his answer, in Spanish speaking countries traditions vary and where they have this reference they might call it the "conejo" and not "liebre". Since "conejo" is a masculine noun we say
El primer conejo
in this case the dictionary entry is for "conejo, ja" which is "nombre masculino y femenino" (respectively) so you could say
La primera coneja
so, just for fun and to compare with the previous example
El conejo (macho) es más alto y rojo que la coneja (hembra), que suele ser más pequeña y blanca
la traducción sería:
La primera liebre de Pascua
Sin embargo es más común oir que se usa la palabra "conejo", entonces quedaría:
El primer conejo de pascua