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"agua" doesn't break the rule. It's feminine. agua fría.

However, there's another rule that words beginning with an a use el because of the double vowel sound.

That's almost correct. It's not all words starting with 'a', but words staring with a _stressed_ 'a', like "águila", "aula" and "hacha" that use "el" as an article, despite being feminine words. The reason is analogous to the use of "an" in English instead of the article "a".

"Abuela"? "Azúcar" "Abuela"?

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