About the gender rule, i am confused :/

Question

Hola!

I am a beginner in Spanish. And I am quite confused by the gender rule.

I saw the below sentences on a website, but I wonder if there's mistake. "él trabaja en un restaurante. Él lava platos."

él is masculine pronouns, should "trabaja" be "trabajo" and "lava" be lavo" ?

Wait for your kind advice!

Welcome to the forum , thank you for filling out your profile , good question , best of luck to you . Buena suerte amiga. - ray76, May 26, 2014

Answer 1

No. "Trabaja" and "lava" are verbs in those sentences. Verbs do not have gender.

yes - 00b055e0, May 26, 2014

:) - ian-hill, May 26, 2014

Good way to put it. - budmcq2, May 26, 2014

Answer 2

Another thing I thought I might add:native speakers will not use the subject pronouns(yo, tú, él ella, usted, etc.) and as you become better in spanish I would suggest eventually stopping from using them.

Very true. In fact, it's best to drop them as soon as possible. It might take some practice, but your Spanish will sound far more natural. - 00ffada9, May 26, 2014

I hear the pronouns at the end only when clarification of the usted conjugation is needed. "Trabaja en un restaurante él y lava platos usted. ¿Verdad?" But I have no idea if it is still considered a subject pronoun. - 00551866, May 27, 2014

Answer 3

My friend ... "él trabaja" is not the same as "el trabajo" .. in the second one "el" is the definite article (like English "the") but if you look at the él in the first one ,, it has an accent mark over it and that makes it the subject pronoun (equivalent of "he" in English .. like ,, él, ella, usted etc. And as AnnRon correctly said above that in this sentence it is used in its verb form trabajar (and not the noun el trabajo) and if you look at the conjungation of trabajar in "presente de indicativo/present indicative" .. it is ,, yo trabajo, tu trabajas, él/ella/ud. Trabaja , nosostros trabajamos, vosotros trabajåis ellos, ellas, uds. Trabajan. So él trabaja means he works .. for example .. él trabaja en una fábrica grande y su trabajo es muy díficil .... hope you get it now.

And the same logic applies to your other sentence too ... él lava platos .. , means .. he washes the dishes or plates but there is also a noun "lavaplatos" but in that case you will say el (and not él) .. el lavaplatos (the dish washer) .. there are many compound nouns in Spanish like lavaplatos, lavamanos and lavavajilla etc. With their respective genders ..

Hope it helps

Answer 4

Gotcha!! Thanks AnnRon

Thanks jimmy1978 for your detial explaination!! :D - Cat26, May 26, 2014

ohh any time my friend .. welcome to the forum .. regards :) - 00b055e0, May 26, 2014