when to add"O"or"A"
When should I add "O"or "A"when speaking with man or women
4 Answers
This is a very broad question and I'm sure there will be many people who can answer better than I can but I'll give it a try.
Firstly gender is applied to nouns in Spanish (and their matching adjectives, to agree with the noun, such as El perro negro = the black dog) With this example in mind, if the dog is a female, the endings and article would change to La perra negra.
Some nouns are neutral like the word for estudiante which doesn't end in an -o or an -a as you can see. With this word only the article will change to represent gender. A female student will be "la estudiante" while a male will be "el estudiante".
And then there are nouns which end in a consonant which often have a female counterparts such as profesor or maestro which both mean male teacher. To change to a female you will use, la profesora or la maestra.
I hope that I have helped in some way.
I suggest you start doing the free SD Learn Spanish video lessons before asking any more questions.
I don't quite understand your question. You don't really "add o or a" when speaking to a man or woman. It would more likely be explained as changing the o to an a if you are speaking about a woman or feminine object. When speaking to someone the verb changes. Verbs do not change according to gender...only nouns and the adjectives that modify them have gender. Every noun has gender, either masculine or feminine. The only nouns that change gender are ones that are living things that have 2 genders., like people and animals. The only way to tell the gender of an object, in general, is if it ends in an "O" or an "A." "O" is usually masculine and "A" is usually feminine. There are exceptions, especially if the word was not originally from Latin, or if it ends in a consonant. Those must just be remembered. For example: La mesa feminine---it has the feminine form of "the, la" and it ends in a "a" There is nothing about a table that is particularly feminine. If you describe the table, la mesa, as a red table, it will be called "la mesa roja." Roja ends in "a" because mesa is feminine and ends in "a". This is called "La concordancia." A table will be feminine no matter what type it is or who it belongs to.
when you speak spanish, nouns and adjetives must agree with gender and number, as soundscape said:
"El perro negro" and "La perra negra"
there is another word you can add and it always ends with "O", the gerund, so, yes, when talking to a woman some words are going to end with "O", for example:
"El perro negro esta corriendo" and " La perra negra esta corriendo" (the black dog is running).
Another example: "Carla, tú estás corriendo" and "Carlos, estás corriendo" (Carla/Carlos, you are running)
sorry for my english, but i just wanted to help saludos!
