Genre of nouns

Los géneros de los nombres. Genres of nouns

Artículo que muestra las diferencias entre el masculino y el femenino de los nombres en español. Diferencias entre la terminación -o y -a para personas y cosas. Algunos nombres con la misma terminación (-e) sirven tanto para femenino como para masculino, cómo apreciar la diferencia por el artículo anterior según sean femenino (la), o masculino (el), y cómo aprenciar el género según la terminación del nombre (-on, -ma, -dad, bre, etc.)

• In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine.

Masculine	Feminine
el chico	la chica
boy	girl
el jardín	la universidad
garden	university
el libro	la revista
book	magazine
el miedo	la libertad
fear	liberty

• The idea that nouns have gender seems perfectly natural when the noun stands for a living creature. This is because in English, living creatures often have different names, depending upon whether they are male or female.

Masculine	Feminine
Man. Hombre	Woman. Mujer
Tiger. Tigre	Tigress. Tigresa
Aviator. Aviador	Aviatrix. Aviadora

The following Spanish nouns all denote living creatures.

El gato: Male cat

La gata: Female cat

El perro: Male dog

La perra: Female dog

El chico: Boy

La chica: Girl

El abuelo: Grandfather

La abuela: Grandmother

• "El" and "la" both mean "the."

el chico (the boy)
la chica (the girl)
el perro (the male dog)
la gata (the female cat)

• What do you notice about the last letter of these nouns?

Masculine	Feminine
gato	gata
perro	perra
chico	chica
abuelo	abuela

Nouns that end in -o are usually masculine. Nouns that end in -a are usually feminine. Notice the word usually! There are exceptions to these two rules.

One cannot predict the gender of a noun that stands for a non-living thing. Try to predict whether the Spanish words for the following things are masculine or feminine:

Masculine or feminine?

Libro
Casa
Dinero
Ventana

Masculine nouns that end in a consonant often have a corresponding feminine form that ends in -a.

el profesor
la profesora
el doctor
la doctora
el señor
la señora

Some nouns that refer to people use the same form for both masculine and feminine. These nouns indicate gender by the article (el or la).

el estudiante
la estudiante
el pianista
la pianista
el artista
la artista

Nouns that end in -sión, -ción, -dad, -tad, -tud, -umbre are feminine.

la televisión
la decisión
la conversación
la habitación
la ciudad
la universidad
la dificultad
la libertad
la actitud
la gratitud
la certidumbre
la muchedumbre

Some nouns that end in -a are masculine.

el problema, el telegrama, el programa, el mapa, el sistema, el poema, el día, el tema, el clima, el idioma, el sofá, el planeta

Many nouns that end in -ma are masculine. Notice that eight of the twelve nouns listed above end in -ma.

el telegrama
el programa
el problema
el sistema
el poema
el idioma
el clima
el tema

Note: A few nouns that end in -ma are feminine, such as la cama and la pluma.

Four of the nouns that end in -a are simply exceptions and must be memorized.
el día
el mapa
el planeta
el sofá
A few nouns that end in -o are feminine.
la mano
la radio

Review of the rules learned.

• Many nouns that denote living things have both a masculine and a feminine form.
• Most nouns that end in -o are masculine.
• Most nouns that end in -a are feminine.
• Masculine nouns that end in a consonant often have a corresponding feminine form that ends in -a.
• Some nouns that refer to people use the same form for both masculine and feminine. These nouns indicate gender by the article (el or la).
• Nouns that end in -sión, -ción, -dad, -tad, -tud, -umbre are feminine.
• Many nouns that end in -ma are masculine.
• A few nouns that end in -o are feminine