When trying to be specific about an animal in terms of its gender in Spanish how is it expressed?
For example, a cat that is female--how do you express that since the word "cat" is masculine? Is it "la gato"?
6 Answers
spanish has exceptions, some female animals only need the last vocal to be replaced but there are lots of exceptions. examples:
Tigre = Tigresa
Gallo = Gallina
Toro = Vaca
Caballo = Yegua
Most of animals have no gender, so you need to add the word "hembra" or "macho" to indicate its genre. Like:
Sapo macho = sapo hembra
Vibora macho = Vibora hembra
El Gato (m), La Gata (f)
El Perro (m), La Perra (f)
The situation in Spanish is quite similar to that in English. For some animals we have entirely different words for males and females e.g. bull/cow, ram/ewe, cock/hen. but for most animals (especially those that seem very different from humans or those that are less familiar) we don't e.g. male/female rattlesnake/spider/mosquito/platypus.
Some animals change more drastically their names depending of gender:
El toro/bull (m) La vaca/cow (f)
El caballo/horse (m) La yegua (f)
El potrillo/fawl (m) La potranca (f)
El gallo/rooster (m) La gallina/hen (m)
El tigre/tiger (m) La tigresa (f)
These are only excepcion to the rule because most of names only change in the articulo determinante "el" and "la" and the end of the word "a" for hembras/female and "o" for machos/males like the examples given by JulianChivis
chica 1 added a comment to a post:
I noticed in spanishdict though the gender changes only for some animals? "Dog" is listed as "el perro", masculine only, while "cat" is listed as "el gato/la gata". Why are only some of them listed in both genders?
And I believe that we can answer him.
Perra, chica1's "female dog" is translated
perra = ****
perra feminine noun
- **** (animal)
Firstly, you change the article, then you change the ending of the subject. El Gato would be masculine, singular. Los Gatos would be masculine, plural. La Gata would be feminine, singular. Las Gatas would be feminine, plural.
