Gender of Spanish nouns
Every once in a while, an enquirer will give a list of nouns and ask us to give us the gender of every noun on the list. This is impractical, and I for one won’t do it. Others refer the OP to use the Translator on the home page. That’s one way of getting it.
Learning the rules is a better way. If you know a few simple rules you can determine with 98% accuracy the gender of all Spanish words. I say 98% because there are a few exceptions.
Articles: The definite article “the” has four forms in Spanish. “el, los” masculine singular and plural, and “la,las” feminine singular and plural respectively.
Ex. “el libro---los libros.” (the book, the books) “la ventana---las ventanas” (the window; the windows)
The indefinite article “a, an (singular) and “some (plural) are rendered “un,una” (masc. and fem. singular) then there is “unos/unas” (masc and fem. plural)
Ex. “Un libro---unos libros”. (a book—some books) “Una manzana---unas manzanas” (an apple---some---apples.
Spanish has two genders. Masculine and Feminine. Every word—living beings and non-living things has either masculine or feminine gender in Spanish.
“People words” Most people words ending in “o” are masculine. el chico, el mecánico, etc. Nationalities like “mexicano”, “cubano” and other are also masculine.
Most People words ending in “a” are feminine. La chica, La profesora, la Mexicana, la cubana, etc.
There are other words with miscellaneous endings that are identified as masculine or feminine only if you know what they mean.
Among these, are “ el hombre” (the man) “la mujer” (the woman)
Words ending in “ista” (like English “ist”) can be either masculine or feminine. “el/la turista” (the male/female tourist)
People words ending in “or” are masculine, “ora” is feminine. El doctor, La doctora (the doctor m/f)
Now it gets interesting.
Gender of non-living things.
Masculine:
(1) Most words ending in “o” are masculine. Exception “la mano” (the hand).
(2) All words ending in “ema” or “ama” (non-living things) are masculine. Ex. el panorama, el drama, el programa, etc. These words have corresponding words (called cognates) in English.
(3) All words ending in “or” are masculine. (living or non-living) Ex: el motor, el doctor.
Feminine:
(1) most words ending in “a” are feminine. (if it’s “ema” or “ama” it’s masculine) The most notable exception is “el mapa” the map, which is masculine.
(2) All words ending in “ión” are feminine. Most of them have English cognates. Ex: “atención” “nación”, “lección” (lesson) and a bunch of others.
(All words ending in “dad” or “tad” are feminine. Most have English cognates. “Libertad” (liberty) “ciudad” (city) “nacionalidad” (nationality) “personalidad” (personality) and hundreds more. The “dad/tad” ending corresponds to our “ty” ending in English.
Words that end in “e” “j” “z” and other endings that don’t fit the rules: There are not many of these. Most of them are masculine like “el reloj” (the clock) There aren’t many ending in “z” Most of these are masculine. Words ending in “e” abound however, and must be memorized as to gender.
I strongly, very strongly recommend using a Spanish/English dictionary. I recommend one in book form. the apps for cell phone are OK but it takes too long to look up words. The first thing that a dictionary tells you about a noun is it’s gender.
While on the computer, you can easily look up a word on the home page. Just plug in the word you want, and just like a book dictionary, the first thing it tells you is the gender.
To sum up: If the word fits into one of the rules, you know what gender it is. If it doesn't fit the rules Ya gotta look it up!! ¿Vale?
2 Answers
This is very helpful ,make use of it members !
Thank you for your contribution Dani.
Click here for a reference article on this topic.
It is almost impossible to find because the search function does not work on the reference articles. - It returns the search results from the Q&A.
