NOUN GENDERS IN SPANISH

ABOUT THE LITERATURE

Most of the following information was collected and translated from the
RAE (Real Academia Espaola) (Royal Spanish Academy), which is the
institution that organizes and creates the standard spelling and grammar
rules for all of the Spanish speaking countries. It establishes these
guidelines according to the Article 1 of its founding charter: "... to ensure
the changes that the Spanish language undergoes [...] do not break the
essential unity it enjoys throughout the Spanish-speaking world."
As a Spanish native speaker, I can tell you that we use these rules on a
daily basis. Everything stated by the RAE is a norm that everyone has to
follow. For example, a few years ago slo (just) and solo (alone, by
itself) had acento diacrtico, that means that we had to use an accent
in order to differentiate each words meanings. Recently, the RAE stated
that due to peoples frequent struggle with this accent, it had to be
removed (JUST in the case of solo). Since they changed the rule, now it
is INCORRECT to put the accent in solo no matter which situation
youre using it in. Every Spanish speaker is (or should be, at least) aware
of these guidelines.
If you want to know more about the RAE, please visit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Academia_Espaola
http://www.spainisculture.com/en/propuestas_culturales/real_academia_e
spanola_brillo_lengua.html
http://www.rae.es (this is the official site)
GENDER ASSIGNMENT TO NOUNS
INTRODUCTION AND BASIC RULES
Hi Lydia! First of all, I need to tell you that although you are really
interested in Spanish grammar, I truly recommend that we should study
the basics first in order for you to understand this information better.
Now, you asked me in the e-mail what were the rules in order to give
nouns a gender. The sad truth is that there are no rules to know this. You
need to learn them through practice. BUT there are some tips that might
help you know which gender you have to use.
1. Dictionary: Several dictionaries tell you whether a word has a
male or female gender. Usually they have an m. or f. before the
definition or translation. Personally, I recommend these
dictionaries:

http://www.wordreference.com
http://dle.rae.es/?id=N2tsDWF (This is the RAEs dictionary, I
looked up the word leche for you but you can type any other
word in the bar that is at the top of the site and then you just have
to click consultar).

2. Tips
a. Gender according to the ending or meaning
Masculine nouns usually are:
The ones ending in o, although there are some male nouns
ending with other vowels, such as a or e.
Save for some exceptions, the words ending with a without
accent, -d, -z, and some other suffixes (-cin, -sin, -umbre, -tis),
words ending with other sounds and compound forms are
masculine.
Names of rivers, mountains, volcanoes, isthmus, canals: el Nilo, el
Amazonas, el Himalaya, el Aneto, el Etna.
Names of cyclones, including hurricanes, typhoons and tropical
storms: el Gustav, el Hanna.
Names of days of the week and months: un agosto muy fro, el
hermoso mayo.
Most of the winds (except brisa and tramontana)
Musical notes: el la, el fa bemol
Augmentatives ending in on applied to objects, even if they come
from a female noun: el mesn (which comes from la mesa), el
noticin (coming from la noticia)
Magazine names: el Semana, el Clara, etc.
Cardinal points: el norte, el sur, el este, el oeste.
Numbers: el uno, el dos, el tres, etc.
Feminine nouns usually are:
The ones ending in a, although there are some female nouns
ending with other vowels, such as o or e.
Save for some exceptions, the words ending with a without
accent, -d, -z, and some other suffixes (-cin, -sin, -umbre, -tis),
words ending with other sounds and compound forms are
masculine.
Letters: la o, la hache.
Also, the following table shows frequent cases in irregular genders BUT
BE CAREFUL because there are LOTS of exceptions and special cases.

Masculino

Femenino

Ejemplos

-o

-a

el abogado, la abogada

-e

-ina

el hroe, la herona

consonante

consonante + -ina

el zar, la zarina

-o

-esa

el vampiro, la vampiresa; el diablo, la diablesa

-e

-a

el dependiente, la dependienta

-e

-esa

el alcalde, la alcaldesa; el jeque, la jequesa

consonante

consonante + -a

el capitn, la capitana; el andaluz, la andaluza

consonante

consonante + -esa

el abad, la abadesa; el barn, la baronesa

-tor

-triz

motor, motriz

Furthermore, aside from male and female nouns, there are also
NEUTRAL NOUNS, and these are the ones that refer to abstract
concepts, things that are not real: lo bueno, lo malo, lo feo, lo bonito (the
good, the bad, the ugly, the pretty).
GRAMMATICAL GENDER
The following article shows detailed explanation about most (if
not all) of the cases related to grammatical gender.
1. GENDER: Spanish nouns can be male or female. When the noun
designates animated objects, usually there will be a specific form for
each grammatical gender according to the biological distinction between
genders, either by using desinences or distinctive gender suffixes that
are added to a stem, such as in gato/gata, profesor/profesora,
nene/nena, conde/condesa, zar/zarina. Also, this distinction can be made
by using words with different stems according to the referents gender
(this is called heteronimia), such as in hombre/mujer, caballo/yegua,
yerno/nuera. However, there are several cases in which there is only one
valid form used to refer to objects from one or another gender: that is
the case of common nouns in terms of gender (sustantivos comunes
en cuanto al gnero) and epicene nouns (sustantivos epicenos). If
the nouns referent is an inanimate object, usually it is either only male
(EL da, EL csped, EL cuadro) or only female (LA mesa, LA pared, LA
regla), though there is a group of nouns that have both genders, and
these are traditionally called ambiguous nouns in terms of gender
(sustantivos ambiguous en cuanto al gnero).

a). Common Nouns in terms of Gender (sustantivos comunes en

cuanto al gnero). Those which, whilst designating animate objects,
have a unique form, which remains equal for both grammatical genders.
On each concrete sentence, the nouns gender that matches the
referents gender is pointed out by determiners and adjectives that have
a sex variation: el/la pianista; ese/esa psiquiatra, un buen/una buena
profesional. Taking this into account, common nouns behave in a similar
way to the adjectives with a single ending, such as feliz, dcil,
confortable, etc., that are applied without changing its form, to both
female and male nouns: un padre/una madre feliz, un perro/una perra
dcil, un silln/una silla confortable.
*In other words, these are the ones that use a single word to refer to
both genders, but the distinction between male and female resides in
the article.
Masculino

Femenino

Ejemplos

-a

-a

el/la periodista

-e

-e

el/la vidente

-i

-i

el/la marroqu

-o

-o

el/la contralto

-u

-u

el/la gur

Examples:
La testigo fue muy clara en su relato.
El testigo fue muy claro en su relato.
b). Epicene Nouns (Sustantivos epicenos). Those which, whilst
designating animate objects, have a unique form that corresponds to
only one grammatical gender and that is used to refer to individuals
from one gender or another indistinctly. In this case, grammatical gender
is independent of the referents sex. There are male epicenes (EL
personaje, EL vstago, EL tiburn, EL lince) and female epicenes (LA
persona, LA vctima, LA hormiga, LA perdiz). The concordance must be
established according to the epicene nouns grammatical gender, and
not according to the referents sex; thus, you should say La vctima, un

hombre joven, fue trasladada al hospital ms cercano and you should

NOT say La vctima, un hombre joven, fue trasladado al hospital ms
cercano. In the case of animal epicenes, usually a specification (macho
o hembra [male or female]) is added in order to emphasize the
referents sex: La orca macho permanece cerca de la rompiente [],
zarandeada por las aguas de color verdoso (Bojorge Aventura [Arg.
1992]).
*In other words, these nouns DONT CHANGE AT ALL no matter which
gender youre referring to. Also, as you can see the adjectives and verbs
should match the nouns gender, regardless of whether youre referring
to a girl or a boy.
Examples:
El personaje de la chica fue muy bueno (The girls character was really
good).
El personaje del chico fue muy bueno (The boys character was really
good).
c) Ambiguous Nouns in terms of Gender (Sustantivos ambiguous
en cuanto al gnero). Those which, whilst designating inanimate
objects, admit their use in one or another gender without changing the
words meanings: el/la armazn, el/la mar, el/la vodka. Usually the
choice between one or another gender is associated with language level
or dialectical, sectorial and/or personal preferences. Ambiguous nouns in
terms of gender should not be confused with cases where the same word
implies different meanings according to the changes in gender: el clera
(it is a disease) and la clera (wrath); el editorial (anonymous featured
article) and la editorial (publishing firm). Among ambiguous nouns, only
nade and cobaya designate animate objects.
*Basically, Ambiguous Nouns in terms of Gender are the nouns that use
a single word to refer to both genders but also, these can use either
male or female articles according to your preference. They are both
correct forms and the change of article doesnt affect the meaning.
For example:
El mar est tranquilo (The sea is calm).
La mar est tranquila (The sea is calm).
2. Using male forms to refer to both genders
2.1 In nouns that designate animate objects, the grammatical masculine
is not only used in order to refer to male individuals, but also to
designate a class or a group of individuals from the same species,

without gender distinction: El hombre es el nico animal racional; El

gato es un buen animal de compaa. Consequently, male nouns in
plural can enclose beings from one or another gender: Los hombres
prehistricos se vestan con pieles de animales; En mi barrio hay
muchos gatos (the previous statements are including prehistoric women
and female cats, too, in spite of using only a male plural form). Thus,
with the phrase los alumnos, we can refer to a group of people
consisting of only males, but also theres a possibility that this
expression might be referring to a mixed grouped of people formed by
both male and female students. However, several people have said that
this is a rule that doesnt respect gender equality but actually this norm
has been established taking into account expressive economy. Only
when sex opposition is a relevant matter in the context, then it is
necessary the explicit presence of both genders: La proporcin de
alumnos y alumnas en las aulas se ha ido invirtiendo progresivamente;
En las actividades deportivas debern participar por igual alumnos y
alumnas.
2.2 If you see @ in a word or sentence, it is referring to both genders.
For example: L@s ni@s (Los nios Y las nias). THE USE OF @ IN ANY
SENTENCE OR WORD IS INCORRECT, although people use it in order to
be seen as someone who respects gender equality or just in order to
write less.
3. Using female forms in job positions or human activities. Even
though the use of female forms in job positions and human activities is
designated and influenced by utter formal matters etymology,
masculine desinences, etc.- as well as by historical and sociocultural
factors, the following rules can be established, only attending to
morphological criteria:
a) Those which its male form end in o usually become female when
you change this vowel for a: bombero/bombera, medico/mdica,
ministro/ministra,
gineclogo/ginecloga.
There
are
some
exceptions, as in piloto, modelo o testigo, that work as common
nouns: el/la piloto, el/la modelo, el/la testigo. Also the words that
come from reductions or shortenings: el/la fisio (shortened word
from
fisilogo),
el/la
otorrino
(shortened
word
from
otorrinolaringlogo). In some cases, female nouns have the ending
isa (from the latin suffix issa). Also, there are some words that
have two female forms (you can use whichever you want, theyre
both correct and the meaning doesnt change at all) such as in
vampira y vampiresa.
b) The male nouns that end in -a behave as common in most cases:
el/la atleta, el/la cineasta, el/la gua, el/la pediatra. Also, the nouns

that have the suffix ista work as common as well: el/la

ascensorista, el/la electricista, el/la taxista.
c) The nouns that end in e usually behave as common, in
accordance with the adjectives with the same ending: el/la orfebre,
el/la alcalde, el/la conserje. Some of these female nouns can have
other forms ending in esa, -isa or ina. For example, you can say
la alcalde (female mayor) or la alcaldesa.
d) The few ones that end in i or u also behave as common: el/la
maniqu, el/la guru.
e) The male nouns that end in or become female when you add an
a: compositor/compositora, escritor/escritora, profesor/profesora,
gobernador/gobernadora. There are some exceptions, though. In
some cases, you will need to use the suffix triz (which comes from
the latin trix, -tricis), because these cases usually come directly
from
latin
forms
with
this
suffix:
actor/actriz,
emperador/emperatriz.
f) The ones that end in ar or er, as well as the few ones that end in
ir or ur, behave as common: el/la auxiliar, el/la militar, el/la
escolar, el/la lder, el/la chofer, el/la bachiller, el/la mercader.
g) Male nouns that are agudos and end in n or s become female
when adding an a (remember slaba tnica and what we saw
about accents? Well, this refers to that. If you dont remember,
please go back to that lesson): el guardin/la guardiana,
bailarn/bailarina, anfitrin/anfitriona, dios/diosa.
h) Nouns ending with l or z usually behave as common: el/la
cnsul, el/la corresponsal, el/la juez, el/la portavoz, in consonance
with adjectives ending with these same consonants, which have,
save for very few exceptions, a unique valid form for both male
and female: dcil, brutal, soez, feliz (these are adjectives).
i) The nouns ending in other consonants aside from the ones that
have been mentioned previously behave as common: el/la chef,
el/la mdium.
j) Aside from their ending, the nouns that designate military ranks
behave as common: el/la cabo, el/la teniente, el/la capitn, el/la
coronel; the nouns that designate the musician according to the
instrument they play: el/la batera, el/la batera, el/la contrabajo;
also, the nouns that designate a person: el/la sobrecargo, un/una
sabelotodo, un/una correveidile.

k) When a jobs name is formed by a noun and an adjective, both

elements need to match in gender, that is to say, both need to be
in masculine or feminine according to the referents sex (if youre
talking about a boy or a girl): la primera ministra, una intrprete
jurada, una detective privada.
3. Designating gender to countries and cities. Nouns of
countries and cities ending in a should match in feminine with
determiners and adjectives that go with them: LA Colombia del
prximo siglo, la vieja Espaa. At the same time, the nouns that
end in a and are agudos or that end in any other consonant or
vowel, should match in masculine with determiners and other
adjectives: el Panam del futuro, el Mxico de hace tres aos, el
Iraq de maana. When it comes to cities, the ones that end in a
are feminine: la Crdoba romana; and the ones that end in any
other consonant or vowel usually are masculine, although in all
cases there is always a possibility of them being female too
because of the influence of the word ciudad which is feminine-:
el Toledo medieval/la Toledo misteriosa. This alternation between
genders is valid for all cities.
LOANWORDS AND GRAMMATICAL GENDER
Among the factors that influence the gender assignment to loanwords,
some of the most important are mentioned below:
a. The referents gender, in the case of animate objects.
b. Phonological resemblance between the loanwords ending with the
recipient languages ending associated with a determined gender.
c. Gender association with a homophone word from the recipients
language.
d. The tendency to adopt the unmarked gender from the recipients
language.
The first factor listed above only applies for very few cases. However, its
power is absolute and doesnt admit exceptions. Several research about
this matter states that there is no male referent with female gender (you
dont use female gender when talking about males). When the loanword
designates an animate object, the grammatical gender that is adopted in
the recipients language is the one that corresponds to the referents
sex. Henceforth, when talking about baseball in Spanish you say un
catcher, el coach, el manager, un rookie, etc. giving those Anglicisms a
male gender because all of them usually make reference to a male
person.

With regard to the second factor, it is important to remember that in

Spanish, save for some exceptions, the words ending with a without
accent, -d, -z, and some other suffixes (-cin, -sin, -umbre, -tis) are
feminine; on the other hand, words ending with other sounds and
compound forms are masculine. According to this factor, it is natural for
words such as bisbol, bleacher, bound, box, bullpen, club, dead ball,
double play, dugout, escore, field, forfeit, foul, foul tip, handicap, hit,
home, home run, infield, inning, lder, line up, out, pick up, play, play off,
ponche, rally, record, rolling to adopt a masculine gender. It is important
to mention that words like bound or fieldy record could have been
considered as feminine due to the Spanish tendency to consider as
feminine words ending with d, but this final consonant only has
orthographic existence. In the normal pronunciation the d disappears,
so the last consonant becomes n, -l, -r, which are male gender
tendencies.
Even though the cases in which this rule applies are not many, the factor
of gender association with the Anglicism and a homophone word from
the recipients language is also influential. This is probably the cause
why the word base is female. In other cases, homophony concurs with
the factor of phonological ending in order to determine the nouns
gender. This could be the double reason why bola (from ball), curva
(from curve) lnea (from line) and rotacin (from rotation) have female
gender. Those four words do not only have a similar phonological
configuration to their corresponding word in English, but also the first
three end in a and the last one in cin- The same argument can be
applied to male loanwords such as doble (from double), plato (from
plate) and sacrificio (from sacrifice).
Finally, several authors understand that there is a tendency of adopting
the unmarked gender of the recipients language, that in the case of
Spanish is the male gender.
REFERENCES:

RAE. (2005). Gnero 2. Diccionario panhispnico de dudas.

Extrado
el
18
de
Julio
de
2016
desde
http://lema.rae.es/dpd/srv/search?id=Tr5x8MFOuD6DVTlDBg
RLA, Revista de Lingstica Terica y Aplicada, 45 (2), II Sem. 2007,
pp. 89-109.
Wikilengua. (s.f.). Gnero gramatical. Extrado el 18 de Julio de
2016
desde
http://www.wikilengua.org/index.php/Gnero_gramatical

Arranged and translated by Fernanda Prez Prez.