La sangre - the blood. Helpful, right? Los dentistas estn muy jvenes. The dentists are very young. Adjectives that end with an -e or a consonant cannot be modified to express the Spanish grammatical gender. You may have come across this strange exception before where the masculine article el is used for a feminine word. In addition to these anomalies, there are other Spanish gender exceptions that you must keep in mind. La serpiente - the serpent. Fluenz Fluenz Blog Learn Spanish Basic Spanish El or La? I need a vacation from my family after the reunion. There are one hundred chairs available. To put it in simple terms, if youre working with a Spanish masculine noun, you must make sure its modifiers are also masculine. by Mgomezhernandez. La juez es muy puntual. If you were referring to a male friend, which article would you use EL or LA? Search millions of Spanish-English example sentences from our dictionary, TV shows, and the internet. We can check this by going to the plural and to its modifiers: The waters = las aguas" The water is cold = "El agua est fria." - False & True Examples, Irregular Commands in Spanish: Formal & Tu, Irregular Comparatives & Superlatives in Spanish, Simple & Basic Spanish Sentences: Preterite & Imperfect, Car Gar Zar Commands in Spanish: Usted & Tu, Car Gar Zar Verbs in Spanish: Present & Preterite, Irregular Comparative Adjectives in Spanish, Negative & Indefinite Pronouns in Spanish, Discussing International Politics in Spanish, BULATS Business English: Test Prep & Practice, CTEL 1 - Language & Language Development (031): Practice & Study Guide, MTEL English as a Second Language (ESL) (54) Prep, ILTS English as a New Language (125): Practice & Study Guide, MTTC English as a Second Language (086): Practice & Study Guide, IELTS General Training: Practice & Study Guide, PTE Academic Test: Practice & Study Guide, OAE English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) (021) Prep, MTEL Sheltered English Immersion (56): Practice & Study Guide, AP Spanish Literature and Culture: Exam Prep, Spanish Vocabulary for Cooking and the Kitchen, Listening to Someone Give Directions in Spanish, Birthdays & Anniversaries Vocabulary in Spanish, Praxis Spanish Exam Essay Topics & Rubric, Spanish Reading Practice: Opening a New Salon, Vocabulary for Vehicles & Driving in Spanish, Working Scholars Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community. La mano (hand) is feminine, but el pie (foot) is masculine. Thats why agua, a feminine noun, in singular is el agua. For that reason, in this guide, Ill provide you with all the key information you need to know to determine the gender of nouns in Spanish. La pared est recin pintada. In many cases, the worst that can happen to you is that your Spanish will not sound very good: La problema es que no tengo tiempo. Because aguas is plural in the second example, the s on the end of the article las breaks up the stressed a in aguas. Im going to list them one by one, and also I will teach you what the exceptions are if there are any. In Spanish, all nouns have a gender. The Spanish letters "a" and "o" as the final letter of a word designate a feminine or masculine word; "a" is feminine and "o" is masculine. El periodista trabaja todo el da. Este restaurante es muy famoso. Here are the exceptions to this rule. Dictionaries always indicate the grammatical gender of a noun! Part of Paglia's understanding of men's and women's sexual "personae" is shaped by Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian polarity: The former represents the masculine impulse for stoic order and rationality, while the latter represents the feminine drive toward ecstatic, bodily revelry and the chaotic, unpredictable forces of the natural world. Masculine forms. So, you would have to establish if that friend is a male or a female to determine which article to use. Yet if you are referring to a person or occupation this is what happens: EL espa = The spy (if the spy is a man) LA espa = The spy (if the spy is a woman. Benoit Hamon, CEO de SINGA, est venu sur Komune pour donner des faits face aux ides Sofa es muy inteligente. The word espaol was supposedly imported from Provence by a medieval chronicler (it was originally introduced by pilgrims in Santiago) because there was no existing translation of the earlier Roman word Hispani when writing a chronicle of Spanish history, but this was the word Provenal speakers used to refer to the Christian kingdoms of what For 15 years we've taught Spanish to hundreds of thousands of learners. Mi padres pasaron las vacaciones de Semana Santa en Argentina. The noun is called "de gnero comn" (common gender) when with the same termination it may . Qu bonito est tu labial! According to the standard rules, you would think the opposite, but as youll see in the exceptions below, youll learn the nuances with the Spanish language. One might phrase it like thisand I am sincerely sorry if the address here is too masculine, but there is no help for it. Los delfines son adorables. If you want to learn more Spanish, subscribe to my newsletter for free! Este semestre est bien pesado.I desperately need a vacation! Before a stressed A vowel sound, use EL instead of LA even if the noun is feminine. On the other hand, when working as nouns, Spanish colors are always masculine. But that has changed with time, and thus we end up with rules that are blurry which do not help when those starting to learn Spanish. by Classroom52. And to make things more interesting, the fact is that with time, languages evolve and change. Although in English there is no need to think about whether a pencil is a masculine or a feminine noun, it is important in Spanish because the adjectives (i. e. pretty, ugly, small, big) and articles (the equivalents of "the" in Spanish, such as: el, la, los and las) of a sentence must match the gender and number of nouns. Nouns that end with -ma, -pa, -ta, or any of the letters in the word LONERS are usually masculine. I have one hundred pesos. For any person or animal that is masculine, these are the articles to use: For any person or animal that is feminine, these are the articles to use: For example. Como La Flor, by Selena. Most words that. el clima (the weather) Key Takeaways: Spanish Noun Gender Nouns ending in -a, -cin, -a, or -dad are usually feminine. Copyright 2006 Harrap Publishers Limited. As a result, here are some frequently asked questions that most of my students usually have. Feminine and masculine nouns ending in -E. Nouns ending in -e can be masculine and feminine. Singapur es muy caro. Thinking of them together might help you remember their correct gender. It gives some general rules about how to know if a noun is masculine or feminine. El DIA = THE DAY trabajador m (plural trabajadores, feminine trabajadora, feminine plural trabajadoras) worker Synonyms: currante, obrero, trabajante; Derived terms Little by little, and loads of practice is the best remedy. However, in certain situations, changing the gender of a noun can also change its meaning, as you can see in the graphic and examples below: Mi mam tiene un cerezo. If you know your endings and what gender they fall into, the onlyexception to keep in mind is when the word refers to a person, an animal or an occupation because the person or animal will determine the gender of the word. And it sounds quite logical if nouns refer to living creatures: Masculine: El hombre (The man) Feminine: La mujer (The woman) Masculine: Un caballo (A horse) Feminine: Una yegua (A mare) But what about nouns that stand for non-living things? man, dog, house). You will notice that when adjectives modify such words, they are feminine: El agua est fra o tibia? In these cases, we use. I like the pink dress. Here are the common endings for feminine words: The ending -a is usually feminine, just like -o is masculine. Sometimes the word just breaks the rules, and we have to memorize that they are different, such as la mano (hand). And since we are here, this is one of my favorite songs in Spanish! We said all words ending in -a are feminine. Even if the nouns are in singular! A common mistake made by Spanish learners is to confuse the number one, uno, with un, which means a/an. Here are the exceptions to this rule. One ending with a final -a, -ista, can be used on words for male or female people, and is both masculine and feminine. 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. I hope you have enjoyed this article about masculine and feminine in Spanish! Voy a viajar a Mxico durante las vacaciones de verano. There are some words that end with -o, -ma, -pa, -ta, or LONERS that are feminine. Tu voz es muy chillona. The 27 Letters of the Spanish Alphabet [2022], Learn Basic Spanish: The First 10 Spanish Words You Need To Learn [2022]. Why? Despite the many exceptions noted above, a great majority of Spanish words that end in-a are feminine. Join the Tell Me In Spanish community and get a copy of my step-by-step Spanish Learners Roadmaps and tricky synonyms & vocab cheat sheets. If you have studied Spanish, you are painfully aware of this. But for example to most of us the word mdicAsounds wrong- we wouldnt use it. Your lipstick is so pretty! (Translation of vacation from the Cambridge English-Spanish Dictionary Cambridge University Press), (Translation of vacation from the GLOBAL English-Spanish Dictionary 2020 K Dictionaries Ltd), Watch your back! The Spanish gender can be distinguished with certain endings or by checking the gender of the adjectives, pronouns and Spanish articles surrounding that word. 0 && stateHdr.searchDesk ? You are too stressed out; you should go on holiday. Collins Complete Spanish Electronic Dictionary HarperCollins Publishers 2011. This discussion is especially alive with occupations. Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English. As you learned before, many Spanish masculine words end with -n. Therefore, its correct to say: Tengo cien pesos. Cuntas clases faltan para las vacaciones? Nouns ending with -aje are usually masculine: el masaje, el garaje, el paisaje, el pasaje, el peaje, etc. If you dont have one, sign up its free! The food was delicious. Several Spanish nouns have a masculine and a feminine form, for example, hijo - son and hija - daughter.Another example is mdico - male doctor and mdica - female doctor.. Regardless of the rules we stated above, if the word is referring to an animal or a person, then the article must correspond to the gender of the animal or person. Here are two articles that help shed some light on the subject: Puzzle Solved: Why nouns in Spanish are feminine and masculine, The Ultimate Tip-Sheet to Articles in Spanish: (El vs. La, Un vs. Una), Your email address will not be published. One of the first things youll find out when learning Spanish is that all nouns have a gender. coming up later. Therefore, "red" is "rojo" but it becomes "roja" with a. One of the first things that Spanish students learn is that most Spanish nouns that end in -o are masculine and most that end in -a are feminine. One of the first things that Spanish students learn is that most Spanish nouns that end in -o are masculine and most that end in -a are feminine. Lingua Linkup. "Masculine and Feminine in Spanish (el & la): The Rules & Their Many Exceptions." Well start with the most obvious, which is that most words that end in o are going to be masculine. This rule is only applicable to the following numbers: Tengo doscientos pesos. Required fields are marked *. This site also participates in other affiliate programs, including CJ and other sites, and is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies, but in no way increases the cost to you if you opt to make a purchase from my links. What does the root Manus mean? Everything weve ever written about Spanish, all in one place. Encarga doscientas galletas.Order two hundred cookies. So with people you may not know well, perhaps someone older, or people of authority/higher status than oneself such as a college professor. My parents spent the Easter holidays in Argentina. Most Spanish nouns ending in -o are masculine, and most ending in -a are feminine, but there are exceptions. " El nio es bonito y gordo ". The same goes for some words that end in -o that are actually feminine: la mano, la radio, la foto, etc. The problem is that I dont have time. There is one other ending that ends in -a, -ista, that is actually both feminine and masculine. El telfono is masculine. Hay cien sillas disponibles. La botella de Suzy est vaca. Cardinal directions are masculine, too: el norte, el sur, el este, el oeste. The judge is always on time. Masculine and Feminine in Spanish (el & la): The Rules & Their Many Exceptions. I desperately need a vacation! These key rules will make it easier for you! I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. . When describing a masculine noun like "Amigo", we must use a masculine adjective as well, such as "Honesto". 2. A Spanish noun is a word we use to name people, things, concepts, places, and animals. Este silln es muy cmodo. Can vacaciones be singular? However, the word persona is always a feminine word. We only say "el agua" only because it's smoother to pronounce than "la aqua." Period. Many students assume that confusing the gender of words in Spanish is not a big deal. As you can see, most of them are nouns used to describe a persons profession or occupation: And here are some examples of what you can do to mark the gender of these words: [Masculine or feminine determiner] + [noun]+ (adjective). As established before, a Spanish noun can be classified as masculine or feminine depending on its gender. 3. LONERS - words that end with any of the letters in LONERS are usually masculine. This is a feminine word because it is a short form of the longer word, la motocicleta. The name Isaac means 'he will laugh.'. Example 1: We said all words ending in -a are feminine. Create your account. Colors are always masculine, even if they end with -a: el rojo, el negro, el azul, el naranja, el prpura, etc. Two examples are doctora (female doctor) and camisa (shirt). Access millions of accurate translations written by our team of experienced English-Spanish translators.