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Gender Notes

This document discusses gender in Spanish nouns. It explains that all Spanish nouns have a gender of either masculine or feminine. For living things, the gender is usually determined by biological sex. For non-living things, the gender must be memorized according to patterns based on the word's ending. Common masculine endings include -o, -n, -e and -r while common feminine endings include -a, -ción, -dad and -bre. There are always exceptions that must be learned by memorizing the definite article that precedes each word. The document also provides rules for making nouns plural in Spanish.

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16 views

Gender Notes

This document discusses gender in Spanish nouns. It explains that all Spanish nouns have a gender of either masculine or feminine. For living things, the gender is usually determined by biological sex. For non-living things, the gender must be memorized according to patterns based on the word's ending. Common masculine endings include -o, -n, -e and -r while common feminine endings include -a, -ción, -dad and -bre. There are always exceptions that must be learned by memorizing the definite article that precedes each word. The document also provides rules for making nouns plural in Spanish.

Uploaded by

DoctoraHolder
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Sustantivos (nouns); Genero (gender)

A noun is a: Person, place, thing, or idea

In Spanish, all nouns have gender.

For living things, it is easy to determine the gender of a noun. A male is masculine, and a
female is feminine.

Examples:
Chico boy chica girl
Alumno student alumna student (who is a girl)

For non living things, the gender of words is determined by patterns and the endings of a word.

You cannot try and determine the gender of a word by assuming the word is a “girl thing” or a
“boy thing.”

Example:
Are these words feminine or masculine in Spanish?

Dress vestido tie corbata

The only way to determine the gender of a non living thing is to memorize the patterns for
indentifying word gender.

Patterns for Identifying word Gender in Spanish

Masculine Words
Most masculine words end in o.

Examples:
El chico el libro el miedo

Not every Word in Spanish ends in O. Therefore, some other Masculine word endings are:
L costal
O perro
N saxofón
E mensaje
R pastor
S el mes
Ma el problema
Ta el planeta
Pa el mapa

*** There are always exceptions to every rule!! Sometimes a word will end with one of the
endings above, and be a feminine word. My suggestion is as you learn vocabulary throughout
your Spanish courses; you memorize the articles that go in front of the words to help you
remember any exceptions. (the el or la)

Feminine Words
Most feminine words end in a.

Examples:
La chica la pintura la regla

Not every Word in Spanish ends in A. Therefore, some other Feminine word endings are:
Ción pronunciación
Sión tensión
Tud actitud
Dad actividad
Ud salud
Umbre costumbre
Ie superficie
A mexicana

*** There are always exceptions to every rule!! Sometimes a word will end with one of the
endings above, and be a masculine word. For example, one common masculine word ending is
“ma,” so you have to pay a lot of attention to the words. My suggestion is as you learn
vocabulary throughout your Spanish courses; you memorize the articles that go in front of the
words to help you remember any exceptions. (the el or la)

Plurals
Making words plural in Spanish is easy, but different (the opposite) of English. Here are the
rules:
1. If a word ends in a consonant, add an es
2. If the word ends with a vowel, add an s
3. If the word ends with a z, change the z to c and add es
4. If the word ends with an es or is already, it stays the same (in this case the article will
indicate the plural)

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