what is masculine

Question

what is masculine

Answer 1

Men are masculine. Los hombres.

But, so are 50% of the other nouns in the Spanish language. Most end in "o." Some end in "e" like "el tigre." Some highly irregular ones like "el problema" actually end in "a" just to throw you off.

One of the first things you need to know is that your articles and nouns need to "have agreement" with respect to gender. This means that the equivalent of "the" is either going to be "el" or "la" depending upon whether the noun is masculine or feminine. Articles also need to agree with respect to singular or plural, so they would be "los" or "las" if the noun is plural. That's how we got to "los hombres" at the top.

Is it 50%-50% as far as noun gender goes? - 0074b507, Mar 30, 2011

I actually have no idea. I just assumed. - JoyceM, Mar 30, 2011

Answer 2

Masculine is a word adopted from the French, much to the chagrin of the Freedom Fry eaters. . .so is army. Maybe we need more Freedom. . .

Answer 3

It is a class of words in languages with gender which applies to things and animate beings, but when refers to the latter, it is typically (but not necessarily) used for males.

Answer 4

Reference article on noun gender and adjective concordance

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