How come it´s el problema and not la problema?
In Spanish, definite articles must agree in number and gender with the noun they modify. The Spanish letters "a" and "o" as the final letter of a word designate a feminine or masculine word; "a" is feminine and "o" is masculine. So how come it's "el problema" and not "la problema" since "el" should always modify a masculine noun and "la" a feminine noun.
10 Answers
Welcome to the forum. The reference section here is really helpful, check the link above.
From that article:
For All Those Masculine Nouns that Don't End in -O...
If it ends in -e, an accented vowel (á, é, í, ó, ú), a consonant other than -d or -z, or -ma (greek origin) it's also masculine.
-ma el programa, el drama, el idioma, (el tema, el clima, el sistema ...)
Borrowing From Greek!
A lot of nouns that end in -ma, -pa, and -ta are masculine because they are Greek in origin.
There are also listings of individual exceptions that need to be memorized in that article, but "el programa" is part of a group and does not need to be memorized as an individual exception.
You are correct, but every rule has exceptions. Example: el agua
That's a different kind of exception, since agua is feminine while problema is masculine. There are some words that don't follow the normal rule, such as mano and día, and problema happens to be one of a class of words derived from Greek that kept their Greek gender.
The Spanish letters "a" and "o" as the final letter of a word designate a feminine or masculine word; "a" is feminine and "o" is masculine.
That is actually a common misconception.
The words simply have their gender regardless of ending. It just so happens that a lot of nouns ending in o are masculine and a lot of nouns ending in a are feminine...so it is a handy rule-of-thumb that is helpful if you must guess at the gender of an unknown word.
What I and (I assume) most people end up doing is assuming the gender for most -o and -a ending words to be masculine and feminine respectively and, then when we encounter one that doesn't match our expectations (like el problema), we'll look it up to clarify and then remember the exceptions.
I assumed it was la problema until a month or so ago. And, I've been studying Spanish for over 3 years.
Checking a large dictionary:
More than 8% of the nouns ending in -a are not feminine.
More than 45% of the feminine nouns do not end in -a.
Masculine
In broad generality, all nouns not fitting into the above categories and exceptions - plus the following.
Nouns of Greek origin, ending in "-ma" / "-ta" / "-pa"
- el clima, el programa, el tema
- el cometa, el planeta (but to confuse you: la dieta
) - el mapa
You are correct, but every rule has exceptions. Example: el agua
To follow up on my initial answer regarding gender of "-ma" nouns:
The rule I use is that "-ma" nouns are masculine in general:
idioma, poema, sistema, tema, problema, fantasma, clima, morfema, drama, enigma, emblema, diagrama, síntoma, lema, panorama, pijama, plasma, programa, aroma, crucigrama, dilema, estigma...........
There are, however exceptions to that rule that must be memorized, for example:
la goma, la pluma, la forma, la chusma
There are also stressed initial "a" feminine "-ma" nouns that need to be kept in mind:
el arma, las armas
And for my further confusion:
el alma, las almas (?los almas)
Which I had learned as a feminine noun, but which also lists masculine meanings under our dictionary entry from the Velazquez source (alma), but which I did not find listed in DRAE.
The reasons for this additional post:
(1) Paralee has as #1 in the exercises under nouns-gender the word alma, with the correct answer being masculine.
(2) I did a set of flashcards that incorrectly assigned 4 feminine "-ma" nouns to the wrong gender, at least to my understanding.
Any corrections to this, any additional "-ma" nouns that are feminine (to memorize as exceptions), and any other comments would be appreciated.
If your rule were "articles (definite or indefinite) that end in 'o' are masculine while those that end in 'a' are feminine", you'd be in great shape. However, as WebDunce said, when applied to the entire class of nouns, it is, at best, an approximation (rule-of-thumb).
As Einstein famously said (I paraphrase) make it (the explanation) as simple as possible but no simpler. Unfortunately some teachers and textbooks, as well, seem willing to sacrifice accuracy/correctness for the sake of simplicity of rules.
I made sure to memorize the exceptions first and continue my adventure in Spanish from there.....
And then there are the real exceptions, for example:
arte: the singular is masculine, but the plural is feminine
cometa: it's masculine when it means comet, but feminine when it means kite
artista: it's masculine or feminine, depending on the gender of the person
