2.3.0: Gramática
Gender of Nouns
In Spanish, all nouns have a gender.
Nouns that that end in -a, -ión, -tad, and -dad , or end in other consonants and refer to beings with female attributes are feminine in gender.
Modelo:
- People with feminine attributes : la mujer, la chica, la profesora
- -a: la casa, la pluma, la mochila
- -ión: la canción (the song), la nación (the nation), administración (the administration), la educación (the education)
- -tad: la amistad (friendship), la dificultad (the difficulty)
- -dad: la ciudad (the city), la verdad (the truth), la libertad (the freedom)
Many nouns that end in -o, -ta or -ma or refer to beings with male attributes are masculine in gender.
Modelo:
- People with masculine attributes: el hombre, el chico, el profesor
- -o: el libro, el cuaderno, el escritorio
- -ta: el cometa, el planeta, el tema (the theme, the topic)
- -ma: el poema, el programa, el diagrama
Some nouns that refer to people have a single form; therefore, they can be both masculine and feminine, and gender is indicated by the article chosen to refer to them. You already know one of these nouns, estudiante ( el/la estudiante ).
Modelo:
- el/la paciente (the patient)
- el/la dentista
- el/la periodista (the journalist, the reporter)
- el/la deportista (the athlete)
There are some words that do not follow the rules discussed above, and thus, you need to follow our recommendation: Learn the article with the word to remember their gender .
Some of the words in this category are:
- La mente ( the mind )
- la gente ( [the] people )
- la clase
- el mapa
- el día
- la mano ( the hand )
- el agua ( water )
Number of Nouns
¿Y el plural? What happens if we need to talk about people, things, places, etc. in the plural ? Well, it is quite easy.
If we need an article to refer to them, we need to transform the singular form of the indefinite or the definite articles into the plural forms.
Modelo:
- Indefinite articles: un --> unos ; una --> unas
- Definite articles: el --> los; la --> las
We also need to use the plural form of the noun.
As in English, when a noun ends in a vowel , to make the plural form, you only need to add -s to the singular noun
Modelo:
un/el libro --> unos/ los libros
If a noun ends in a consonant , you need to add -es
Modelo:
una/la universidad --> unas/las universidades