Question on a and o ending nouns
Do nouns ever change the ending letter, or is it only verbs, adjectives, and so on so forth. For example, Puerto Plata, puerto is masculine, but then plata is feminine.
3 Answers
Indeed, nouns don't change their endings based on gender, unless they refer to male or female people. Such as el profesor/la profesora, el panadero / la panadera... And even then this differentiation is sometimes limited to the article : el/la dentista, el/la pianista, el/la socialista ... In these cases the corresponding adjective doesn't change either : el partido socialista / la unión socialista
Most nouns ending on -a are feminine, and most nouns ending on -o are masculine. But there are exceptions : el día, el mapa, la mano. And a number of nouns of Greek origin ending on -a, - ma are masculine too : el problema, el idioma, el dilema...
It is Puerto Rico, rico being an adjective, but Puerto Plata, because Plata is the noun referring to the metal silver, which is a feminine noun. La plata, silver . But el oro, gold. As in Costa de Oro.
