Why do I need "el" when making a list?

After a looooong time, here is a new post!

One of my students asked why the following question was marked wrong by the textbook's online component,

Los tres idiomas que se hablan en Bolivia son _______, ________ y ________.

His answer was,

Los tres idiomas que se hablan en Bolivia son español, aimará y quechua.

The names of the languages are correct, but the grammar, according to the online workbook, i wrong. Why?

This is my answer.

Here the definite article is needed because this an identification of nouns; in this case languages.

It is the equivalent of this in English,

The thee languages spoken in Bolivia are the Spanish language, the aimará language, and the quechua language.

The key is "Los" at the beginning of the sentence. This means that those are THE three languages and there are no more than three. If instead of "Los tres idiomas" we had "Tres idiomas...." then we would be able to just name the languages without the article. It would also imply that there are more languages that Bolivians speak. So, consider this:

Los tres idiomas que se hablan en Bolivia son el español, el aimará y el quechua.

Tres idiomas que se hablan en Bolivia son español, aimará y quechua.

The two sentences mean basically the same when you translate them into English. However, from a grammatical point of view, they are different. The first one means that only three language are spoken in Bolivia, while the second one means that three of the languages are Spanish, Aimará, and Quechua, and there are more than three. The reason why el, la, los, las (the) are definite articles is that they make the nouns more important and not part of a simple list, but the list of something.

I hope this helps. 

I tend to confuse FUI and FUE. Any suggestions?

Part I: writing fui and fue 

I have not written any entries on this blog for a while. A long while--sorry. This doesn't mean that I have not received questions from students, former students, and friends. One of the most common questions is the title of this post. Fui and Fue are very similar and confusing for English speakers. Let me know if the following explanation helps you remember how to write these words.

Grammar 

Fui and fue, or fue and fui, are different and similar. They’re both forms of the verbs "ser" (to be) and "ir" (to go) in the simple past tense. This is the complete conjugation: 

singular: yo fui, tú fuiste, usted fue, él fue, ella fue
plural: nosotros fuimos, vosotros fuisteis, ustedes fueron, ellos fueron, ellas fueron 


One of the problems is that “i” and “e” may have the same sound in English, but the sound is different in Spanish. Remember, 

 fui = sounds like foo-ee

…with emphasis on “ee;” in fact, in the past, the word “fui” had a written accent over the “i:” fuí. 


fue = sounds like foo-eh …with emphasis on “eh.” 


Think that the “i” on “fui” is the same as “I” (yo) and the “e” on “fue” is the “e” of “él” and “ella.” 

Yo fui
I was / I went

 usted fue,  él fue, ella fue
you (formal) were/went, he were/went, she were/went

 Perhaps the best way to remember the difference between fui and fue is that "I" (yo" goes with "i" (fui), and other people go with "e" (fue), or that all the singular, Spanish pronouns that have an "e" somewhere, goo "fue." This is not a rule, but it may help you to write "fue" and "fui" correctly.