Libra, or Libro????

Question

O.k I know that to say something like "La niña está leyendo un libro," means, The girl is reading the book.? Right? Now, based on that, why does libro not seem to have a feminine form? When I typed in "libra," thinking that since the subject is a girl, then the direct object should be feminine, the translator gave me "pound." Is it true that there is no feminine way to say "libro", or is the machine just inaccurate?

Answer 1

Libro and libra are nouns. Nouns have their own genders (male or female). Nouns have their gender independently of other nouns in the sentence (niña is feminine and libro is masculine no matter what). It is adjectives that must agree (in gender and number) with the nouns that they describe.

• La niña corta (the short girl)

• El niño corto (the short boy)

• El libro pesado (the heavy book)

• La libra pesada (the heavy pound)

In the examples above, corto/a and pesado/a are adjectives. Adjectives have no gender of their own but must take on the gender of the nouns they are modifying.

I hope this helps.

just to correct a typo so it doesn't confuse you... la libra = the pound and it is a feminine noun using LA, not EL. So "the heavy pound" is actually "la libra pesada". There are some odd nouns that end in A but are masuline, but pound isn't one. - VivianM, Aug 24, 2010

Thanks, Vivian. - webdunce, Aug 26, 2010

Answer 2

Hello, Melton, welcome to the Forum. Congratulations, first of all, for a well crafted question that has been posted making use of good grammar, capitalization and punctuation. I cannot begin to tell you how much we appreciate that!

As for your question, objects that do not have sexes, i.e. inanimate objects, only have one genitive form. Thus, "el carro", "la plaza", "el edificio", "la casa", "el libro".

Only people, animals, and in some cases plants, have a male and female form.

Amen. - revmaf, Aug 24, 2010

Answer 3

The translator is correct. Libro is the object and Niña is the subject. The adjective must use the noun´s gender, but an object uses its own gender.

While this answer is perfectly good, Melton, it is usually a good practice to wait a few hours before Accepting an answer. You never know if someone may post an answer that you like even better! :-) - Gekkosan, Aug 24, 2010

Thanks. I wasn't quite sure what to do about that. - melton1995, Aug 24, 2010

You did fine, and you recovered well. We all started at 0. Great site, isn't it? - LateToDinner, Aug 24, 2010

Answer 4

As for your question, objects that do not have sexes, i.e. inanimate objects, only have one genitive form. Thus, "el carro", "la plaza", "el edificio", "la casa", "el libro". Only people, animals, and in some cases plants, have a male and female form.

!) "genitive" refers to the form (in languages with some level of inflection) to "possessive" form (of nouns or pronouns).

2) Languages (such as Spanish) do not have "male" and "female" forms they have "masculine" and "feminine" forms. When talking about people, animals, and in some cases plants, "gender" may, indeed, equate to "sex" but in the general case (most obviously, inanimate objects) "gender" (or if you wish to emphasize the context "grammatical gender") has little/nothing to do with "sex".

3) Greek and All of the Romance languages have grammatical gender (which the latter inherited from Latin) have "grammatical gender". In all cases this is inherent in the noun. The fact that the subject of a sentence may be male/female (or masculine/feminine) is irrelevant to the gender of other nouns in the sentence (e.g. direct/indirect objects). The gender of a noun is inherent and unaffected by its use in a sentence.

Answer 5

Thank you!!! I intend to keep this up. It really helps me a lot. I understand it now. Thanks again!!