Using the Spanish definite article or not with titles

Learn whether to use or not the Spanish definite articles with titles

señor/señora/señorita

In Spanish, if we are referring to someone using their title, i.e. señor, señora, señorita, we must use the definite article el/la/los/las.

Here are some examples:

Although it's more common to use just the surname/surnames when we use these titles, sometimes both name and surname are used. For example:

But,

if we speak directly to the person, we omit the article:

don/doña

We use "don" and "doña" in a very similar way to the titles señor/señora. In English these are also the equivalent of Mr. or Mrs. but with the difference that we use them followed by the person's first name or followed by both first name and surname, but never just their surname. For example:

Notice how with don and doña we omit the article both when referring to them and when speaking directly to them. 

These would be incorrect:

doctor/doctora

When referring to a doctor (doctor = male doctor and doctora = female doctor) the same rule as for señor/señora/señorita applies: we use the article unless we speak to the doctor directly, in which case we omit it. 

For example:

But,

if we speak directly to the doctor, we drop the article:

san/santa

When we refer to a "saint" we use the words San and Santa followed by their name; san = male saint and santa = female saint. 

For example:

Look how in the examples above we do not use the article el/la.

When religious people speak to saints directly there is still no article:

There are some exceptions when referring to male saints whose names begin with To- and Do-, in which case it would be "santo... "  (not San), for example: santo Domingo or  santo Tomás

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