1.2 Nouns: Gender and Number

Nouns: gender (género)

Nouns in Spanish are considered to have “gender” and are classified as being either “masculine” or “feminine”. It’s easy to think of a noun such as “boy” as being masculine and “aunt” as being feminine:

Masculine Feminine
el chico the boy la chica the girl
el tío the uncle la tía the aunt

The initial pattern that we can see from the examples above is that nouns referring to people that end in an “o” are masculine and nouns referring to people than end in an “a” are feminine.

Nouns referring to people that don’t end in an “o” or “a” will be masculine if they are males and feminine if they are females:

Masculine Feminine
el hombre the man la mujer the woman
el padre the father la madre the mother

However, what might seem strange is to think of nouns such as “book” as being masculine and “window” as being feminine:

Masculine Feminine
el libro the book la ventana the window
el cuaderno the notebook la mensa the table

Words such as “gender: masculine / feminine” are simply grammar terms that allow us to talk about how a language works. In fact, there is nothing inherently masculine about a book, nor anything inherently feminine about a table. Yet, nouns such as “libro / cuaderno” do end in an “o” just like “chico / tío”, which are masculine. Likewise, nouns such as “ventana / mesa” end in an “a” just like “chica / tía” which are feminine.

Therefore, the general rule is that most nouns that end in “o” are masculine, and most nouns that end in “a” are feminine—whether they refer to people or things. Words such as “gender: masculine / feminine” are simply grammar terms that allow us to talk about how a language works. In fact, there is nothing inherently masculine about a book, nor anything inherently feminine about a table. Yet, nouns such as “libro / cuaderno” do end in an “o” just like “chico / tío”, which are masculine. Likewise, nouns such as “ventana / mesa” end in an “a” just like “chica / tía” which are feminine.

There are other patterns to noun endings that will tell us if the noun is masculine or feminine:

Masculine
ends in -o el libro the book
ends in -or el doctor the doctor
Feminine
ends in -a la casa the house
ends in -ora la doctora the doctor
ends in -cíon, -dad, or -tad la cancíon, la universidad, la libertad the song, the university, the freedom

When talking about grammar, rules help us understand how the language works; but there always seem to be exceptions to the rule:

1. Words ending in “-ista” can be either masculine or feminine:

-ista males -ista females
el artista the artist la artista the artist
el dentista the dentist la dentista the dentist
el turista the tourist la turista the tourist

2. A number of words of Greek origin ending in “-ma” are masculine:

el clima the climate, weather
el idioma the language
el problema the problem
el programa the program
el sistema the system

3. Other words are irregular because they are opposite of the “ends in o/a rule”:

el día the day la mano the hand
el mapa the map la radio the radio
el planeta the planet

Nouns: number (número)

To make nouns plural, add -s to those ending in a vowel and -es if they end in a consonant. For nouns ending in a -z, change the -z to -c and then add -es.

Noun Singular Plural
ends in vowel el libro los libros
ends in vowel el día los días
ends in a consonant la mujer las mujeres
ends in a -z la luz las luces

When a plural noun refers to both genders then the masculine form is used:

Noun Noun
el chico the boy
la chica the girl
los chicos the boys OR the boys and girls

Nouns: Gender and Number” in First Year Spanish 1 by Paul Eckhardt is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Basic Spanish Language & Culture Copyright © 2022 by Germàn Gutiérrez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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