When do you use masculine vs feminine?
When do you use masculine vs feminine version of the word when the subject you are speaking about is neuter gender?
For example: "Esa casa" or "Eso casa"
4 Answers
Hi and welcome to the forum.
I think your question is more about nouns with gender because there are no neuter nouns.
La Casa = feminine
El Vestido = masculine
El Agua = feminine
La Mano = feminine
In Spanish, nouns are either masculine or feminine. But Spanish does have use for the neuter form, which can come in quite handy when referring to concepts or ideas.
The thing to keep in mind about Spanish's neuter form is that it is never used to refer to known objects or people, and there are no neuter nouns or descriptive adjectives. Here, then, are the cases where you'll see the neuter used:
Lo as the neuter definite article: Chances are that you're familiar with el and la, which usually are translated as "the" in English. Those words are known as the definite articles because they refer to definite things or people (el libro or "the book" refers to a specific book). Spanish also has a neuter definite article, lo, but you can't use it before a noun like you do el or la because there are no neuter nouns.
When do you use masculine vs feminine version of the word when the subject you are speaking about is neuter gender?
People keep talking about the neuter gender, but in practice, Spanish has only two genders: masculine and feminine. There is no neuter gender in Spanish, except for a few isolated words that agree either in masculine or feminine anyway. Even things and abstract concepts must be either masculine or feminine, and we don't have a word for "it"; things must be either "él" or "ella". Our gender is purely conventional (especially when we refer to non-sexual beings), while English gender is "natural" (i.e. it always matches sex).
The so called neuter article ("lo") comes from the Latin neuter pronoun, but in Spanish, in all pronominal constructions it must agree in masculine, while in emphatic constructions it agrees with the noun it refers to, which can only be masculine or feminine anyway.
Lo caro es bueno [Correct: "bueno" agrees in masculine, not in "neuter"]
Lo caro es buena [Wrong!]
The same goes for "esto", "eso" and "aquello": they must agree in masculine even though they are called neutral.
Eso es bueno [Correct: "bueno" agrees in masculine, not in "neuter"]
Eso es buena [Wrong!]
There are certain words that become neuter gender when used in specific situations, ie: Lo mejor de mi vida eres tú..... The best (part) of my life is you. In this case, "lo mejor" is neuter.
With words such as "casa," the word is always femine regardless of the article or adjective.
Casa is feminine.
