Género y número / Gender and number

Nouns for inanimate objects or abstract concepts

Maculine Femenine
-o el libro -a la luna
el piano la mesa

-or el calor -ora la batidora

el resplandor la licuadora

-aje el viaje -dad la solidaridad, la felicidad

el maquillaje -tad la libertad, la facultad
el paisaje -tud la juventud, la virtud

-ma el problema -umbre la cumbre

el idioma la legumbre
el panorama la costumbre
el clima

-an el pan, el plan -ez la vejez

-án el azafrán, el imán -ción la niñez
-ón el balón, el corazón -sión la canción, la composición
la decisión, la ocasión

Nouns for animated beings

Masculine Femenine Examples

-o, -e -a el niño, la niña
el jefe, la jefa
-or, -ón, -án -ora, -ona, -ana el director, la directora
el león, la leona
el catalán, la catalana
Many different endings -esa, isa, -ina, -triz el príncipe, la princesa
el barón, la baronesa
el sacerdote, la sacerdotisa
el poeta, la poetisa
el héroe, la heroína
el actor, al actriz
The noun is the same both for male and female, el/la violinista
the article tells the gender of the noun el/la cantante
(specially -ista, -ente and -ante) el/la estudiante
el/la testigo
el/la mártir
el/la joven
el/la docente
Different names for male and for female. el hombre, la mujer
el padre, la madre
el toro, la vaca
 Género de adjetivo/ Gender of adjectives

Cases Masculine Femenine

-o for maculine Juan es alto María es alta
-a for femenine
hermoso hermosa

-o for maculine muchacho brasileño muchacha brasileña

-a for femenine
Masculine and feminine estadio carioca playa carioca
-a, -e, -í, -ú escritor estadounidense escritora estadounidense
ejército iraní chica iraní
hombre hindú religión hindú

Masculine with consonat abuelo español naranja española

Femenine with consonant + a jugador escocés actriz escocesa
soldado alemán ciudad alemana

Masculine -án, -ín, -ón niño haragán Niña haragana

Female -ana, -ina, -ona frijol saltarín liebre saltarina
conejito dormilón gallina dormilona

Masculine -ete, -ote bebé regordete niña regordeta

Female –eta, -ota general grandote enfermera grandota

Mas./Fem. ending in -a empresario egoísta anciana egoísta

Mas./Fem. ending in -al día especial persona especial
Mas./Fem. ending -ante, -ente anillo brillante estrella brillante
amigo valiente amiga valiente
Mas./Fem. ending -az, -iz, -oz un coche veloz una avioneta veloz
un tipo feliz y capaz una mujer feliz y capaz

Mas./Fem. ending in –ble maestro amable camarera amable

Mas./Fem. ending in -or el hermano mayor la mujer mayor
el mejor programa la mejor ciudad
 Número de sustantivos y adjetivos / Number of nouns and adjectives

Words ending in Plural forms Examples

Vowel Add an -s la carta perdida / las cartas

perdidas
esta calle / estas calles
un auto viejo / unos autos
viejos

Stressed i or u Add an –es el maní / los maníes

israelí / israelíes
hindú / hindúes

Consonants Add an -es La ciudad gris / las ciudades

grises
el mantel azul / los manteles
azules
el reloj / los relojes
el sándwich / los sándwiches
La ley común / las leyes
comunes

Z Change z to c and add -es la voz / las voces

la actriz / las actrices

Notes

Words whose stressed syllable is the last one lose their stress alemán / alemanes, inglés /
ingleses, autobús / autobuses

There are nouns that are mostly used in plural form like los anteojos, las gafas, las tijeras. (It is
perfectly acceptable to use the singular). The plural form can refer to one or more objects.

There are nouns that are invariable. la crisis / las crisis, el paraguas / los paraguas, el lunes /
los lunes. [The days of the week are invariable (except sábado/s and domingo/s)]
GENDER

It will not always be possible to predict the gender of a noun by looking at the word. When you
look up any Spanish noun in the dictionary, the first thing you'll find will be the letter m (for
masculine) or f (for feminine). When you learn a new vocabulary word that is a noun, you must
memorize the gender of the word as well as the actual spelling of the word. Sometimes, the
spelling of the word itself may make it possible to ascertain the gender of a word just by
looking at it.

Basic rules

The first question you probably have is, “When is it possible to know the gender of a noun by
looking at the word?” In some cases, you will be able to tell the gender of a word based on the
ending of the word itself. The two most basic rules about gender are based on the last letter of
the noun: A word that ends in –o is masculine, and a word that ends in –a is feminine. There
are a few exceptions to this rule (for example, la mano and el mapa).

In addition to the general rule that nouns ending in an –a are feminine, another feminine
ending is the letter –d. Typically, a word that ends in –dad, –tad, or –tud will be feminine.
Notice that most of these words have English equivalents that end in – ty. When you see a
Spanish word that ends in –dad, –tad, or –tud, change the ending to –ty to recognize an
obvious cognate.
With reasonable confidence, you can bet that a word ending in any of the following
combinations will be feminine: –ie, –umbre, –ión.

English words that end in the suffix – tion are equivalent to the Spanish ending –ción. A
Spanish word that ends in –ción will always be feminine, will always have an accent on the ó,
and will usually have an English cognate that ends in – tion.
In addition to nouns that end in –o being masculine, nouns that end in –or, –és, or – ón are
generally going to be masculine as well.

Article and suffix changes

Occasionally, a noun's spelling will remain the same but the article will change to indicate
whether the meaning is masculine or feminine. Also, sometimes a noun can be changed from
masculine to feminine simply by changing the ending from an –o to an –a.

Change the article

When a word that ends in –e is used to refer to a person, the same word is used for both
genders. Only the article and adjectives that modify the word will reflect the gender of the
person that the noun represents.
It is common to add the suffix –ista to a noun to create a new noun that means “a specialist in
…” or “a player of ….” For example, el futbolista is a player of fútbol (soccer), and el pianista is
a player of the piano or a specialist in the piano. The unusual thing about words that end in –
ista is that they will be used for both males and females. The article will indicate the gender of
the person the noun represents. Notice that it will seem strange to use a word ending in –a to
refer to a male. If you make a note of the nouns that break these general rules when you learn
them, you'll avoid a lot of mistakes later.

There are a few occasions where the exact same word will have two very distinct meanings,
one when the noun is used with a feminine article and another when the same noun is used
with a masculine article. The spelling of the word does not change—only the gender
determines which of the meanings is appropriate.
When referring to people, you can change a word from masculine to feminine simply by
changing a noun that ends in –o to –a.

Nouns that end in –or, – és, or – n are generally going to be masculine. If you want to use one
of these nouns to refer to a female, you can change it to a feminine form by adding an –a to
the end of the word.
Remember that you can only create a feminine version of a noun if the word represents a
person. You cannot, for example, change el libro (the book) to la libra just because the book
belongs to a girl. The word for book, el libro, is always masculine, no matter whose book it is.

Irregularities

The gender rules, of course, have exceptions, but some are predictable exceptions. Even
though a word that ends in –a is usually feminine, many words that end in –ma are actually
masculine. Notice the irony that – ma words are masculine. It's even funnier to remember this
rule since a word that ends in – dad is usually feminine.

Remember: – ma words are masculine and –dad words are feminine.

Some words may appear to be feminine but are actually masculine. They end in the letter – a
but are indeed masculine. Unfortunately, there is no trick to remembering which ones they
are, so you just need to memorize them.
A noun that ends in the letter –e may be either masculine or feminine. If a noun ending in – e
refers to an object, it is usually a masculine word, but not always. It is safest to memorize the
gender of these words by learning them with an article.

There are more than a few feminine nouns that end in – e. Following are some of the most
common and easiest to learn:
Some exceptions are easy to understand. For example, the words la fotografia and la
motocicleta are typically cut short in Spanish to la moto (the motorcycle) and la foto (the
photograph). The original, longer version for each of these words ends in –a and is obviously
feminine. However, the gender of the word remains feminine even though the abbreviated
version of the word ends in –o.

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In English, when a word begins with a, like apple, we use the indefinite article with a n added
to avoid a cacophony (=unpleasant acoustic effect, result of combination of non-harmonious
sounds). We say an apple, not *a apple. In Spanish, there are feminine nouns that begin with a
stressed ha or a, like the words arpa, alma, aula, hacha, hada, agua. So, to avoid a cacophony,
the masculine definite or indefinite articles are used (el, un). Notice how this works:

El arpa irlandesa El agua fría

Las arpas irlandesas La fría agua

El hada madrina El hacha es una herramienta

La bella hada madrina Un hacha afilada

Las hadas Unas hachas pesadas

Adjectives that modify the noun are female, because the noun is female. When there is an
adjective placed before the noun or the plural definite or indefinite article are used the
cacophony in avoided, there are no two a together.

The word la azúcar begins with an unstressed a, so it is correct to use the article la. There is no
cacophony.

The same happens whit indenite pronoun like algúno/a (some), ningún/a (no one) or the
demonstrative aquello/a (that):

algún(-a) alma algún alma bella

ningún(-a) alma ningún alma bella

aquel(-lla) alma aquel alma bella