masculine and feminine nouns in Spanish
Let’s check some grammar things that are a must in Spanish. To see it super easy and clear, we are going to see nouns of the objects that we have in a normal classroom. Let’s see the most common ones:
|
MESA |
TABLE |
|
SILLA |
CHAIR |
|
LIBRO |
BOOK |
|
LIBRETA |
NOTEBOOK |
|
BOLÍGRAFO |
PEN |
|
LÁPIZ |
PENCIL |
|
PAPEL |
PAPER |
|
MALETA |
BAG |
|
TELÉFONO |
TELEPHONE |
|
ORDENADOR |
COMPUTER |
|
GOMA |
RUBBER |
|
PIZARRA |
WHITEBOARD |
|
VENTILADOR |
FAN |
The nouns have a gender themselves. Let’s explain it better. We have seen that the adjectives change their gender depending on if it is a masculine or a feminine word. Remember?
España (Noun)⇒Español (male nationality)⇔Española (Female nationality)
Well then, as we said, nouns (things that are around us) have a gender themselves and it will not change. They can be masculine or feminine but that is something that belongs to them and is fixed. What comes along with the noun will have a change but that something we will understand later.
First of all let’s learn how to identify a noun’s gender. Probably you have already some idea of it as we have seen the gender changing in nationalities, but here it is:
Basically all the nouns that end with the Vowell A are feminine and the rest are masculine.
◊ There are so many exceptions in Spanish as we see words that end with a different vowel (e, i, o, u or consonants) than A and are yet Feminine but we will learn them also as the way we go.
Remember again then:
♥ All the nouns that end with the Vowel A are feminine and the rest are masculine.
Therefore:
CASA (House)⇔feminine or masculine? FEMININE
Ends with A so it is a clear feminine noun.
LIBRO (Book)⇔feminine or masculine? MASCULINE
Ends with E so it is a clear masculine noun.
Let’s see the gender of them all then::
|
MESA (Table) |
ENDING A⇒FEMININE |
|
SILLA (Chair) |
ENDING A⇒FEMININE |
|
LIBRO (Book) |
ENDING O⇒MASCULINE |
|
LIBRETA (Notebook) |
ENDING A⇒FEMININE |
|
BOLÍGRAFO (Pen) |
ENDING O⇒MASCULINE |
|
LÁPIZ (Pencil) |
ENDING Z⇒MASCULINE |
|
PAPEL (Paper) |
ENDING L⇒MASCULINE |
|
MALETA (Bag) |
ENDING A⇒FEMININE |
|
TELÉFONO (Phone) |
ENDING O⇒MASCULINE |
|
ORDENADOR (Computer) |
ENDING R⇒MASCULINE |
|
GOMA (Rubber) |
ENDING A⇒FEMININE |
|
PIZARRA (Rubber) |
ENDING A⇒FEMININE |
|
VENTILADOR (Fan) |
ENDING R⇒MASCULINE |
♣ Easy, right? You might wonder why many Spanish words have gender. Let’s give a small look at it in the next section.
Why the gender of words in Spanish?
The gender in Spanish is a characteristic of our language. Most of the languages all over the world do not have gender, only 1/3 of all languages have it.
In Spanish we can find the gender of a word in nouns, adjectives, articles and some pronouns.
It is used to classify words and sets up a concordance/connection among the words. In other words, it is used to follow a gender/number sequence where you can understand easier and faster which words go along with another, due the gender (masculine and feminine) and the number (singular and plural). Ergo, it is used to see grammatically clear what relation the words have one with another.
Let’s see an example:
ELLA ES JAPONESA
SHE IS JAPANESE
1.Ella is a feminine pronoun (she)
2.Japonesa is a feminine adjective and comes along with the same gender as the pronoun Ella, so there is a straight and tight connection between both words. That connection lets us see the language clearly and understandable in grammar and communication terms. Well…They say so 🙂
♣ We are sure that you won’t find Spanish more clear because of the reason explained above. Quite the opposite, it will be a really annoying thing in your learning and we doubt that someday you will find a connection between words because of this, but this is the actual explanation of why we have gender in Spanish.
However, under our experience, no matter how hard you try, this part is gonna be a really annoying side of your Spanish improvement. So let’s get ready for making gender mistakes all the way!!!!
Singular and plural in Spanish
So far, even though we have seen in the verb conjugations plural forms (nosotros, vosotros, ustedes, ellos, ellas) we have only worked on singulars.
First of all, we have to learn how to make a plural (more than one) word out of a singular (only one) one. This is a very easy thing as we have in English.
Let’s see the same nouns of the things we have in class, written above:
|
SINGULAR |
PLURAL |
|
MESA (Table) |
? |
|
SILLA (Chair) |
? |
|
LIBRO (Book) |
? |
|
LIBRETA (Notebook) |
? |
|
BOLÍGRAFO (Pen) |
? |
|
LÁPIZ (Pencil) |
? |
|
PAPEL (Paper) |
? |
|
MALETA (Bag) |
? |
|
TELÉFONO (Phone) |
? |
|
ORDENADOR (Computer) |
? |
|
GOMA (Rubber) |
? |
|
PIZARRA (Rubber) |
? |
|
VENTILADOR (Fan) |
? |
SINGULAR-PLURAL:
Make a word plural it is a very easy thing as it is in English:
1.A word that ends with a vowel a, e, i, o, u we will add an S
MALETA⇒Add S⇒MALETAS
- A word that ends with a consonant we will add ES
PAPEL⇒Add ES⇒PAPELES
Therefore, let’s see the singular and plural noun’s table completed:
|
SINGULAR |
PLURAL |
|
MESA (Table) |
MESAS (Tables) |
|
SILLA (Chair) |
SILLAS (Chairs) |
|
LIBRO (Book) |
LIBROS (Books) |
|
LIBRETA (Notebook) |
LIBRETAS (Notebooks) |
|
BOLÍGRAFO (Pen) |
BOLÍGRAFOS (Pens) |
|
LÁPIZ (Pencil) |
LÁPICES (Pencils) ♠ |
|
PAPEL (Paper) |
PAPELES (Papers) |
|
MALETA (Bag) |
MALETAS (Bags) |
|
TELÉFONO (Phone) |
TELÉFONOS (Phones) |
|
ORDENADOR (Computer) |
ORDENADORES (Computers) |
|
GOMA (Rubber) |
GOMAS (Rubbers) |
|
PIZARRA (Rubber) |
PIZARRAS (Whiteboards) |
|
VENTILADOR (Fan) |
VENTILADORES (Fans) |
♠ The plural of LÁPIZ ⇒ LÁPICES have a small irregularity when making the noun plural. It happens eventually but is not a common thing so we do not pay attention to singular-plural irregularities now.
2 Comments
This article claims that “all the nouns that end with the Vowel A are feminine.” How about such nouns as el sistemA, el idiomA?
Hello A.,
the post gives a general idea of the gender rule in Spanish in order to simplify the understanding of it -note that this post is for beginners-. There are many words that do not follow that easy rule like the words you mentioned. The gender in those cases is due the origin of the noun and other exceptions that are not explained here.