And because it is an occupation, we said that those that end in -a, tend to stay the same. Feminine nouns that end in -o * These words are shortened from words that do end in A: discoteca, fotografa, motocicleta, pornografa, and radiodifusin. up when learning new vocab because they had learned this rule of thumb. Your lipstick is so pretty! Most masculine nouns end in -o, like hermano, meaning 'brother' and most feminine nouns end in -a, like hermana, meaning 'sister'. Make sure you pay attention to the exceptions column. 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. So, well cover those exceptions below, too. Most words that end in the letter -o are masculine. La verdad puede ser dolorosa. Its the same for words ending with -a: el/la espa, el/la polica, el/la gua. This t-shirt is black. This discussion is especially alive with occupations. If you were referring to a male friend, which article would you use EL or LA? If the noun is masculine and singular, use the masculine, singular ending (usually - o ). I love smoked salmon. La disco is short for la discoteca, andla foto is short forla fotografa. La camisa rosa es muy grande. Este semestre est bien pesado. The words doctorA, arquitectA, are relatively new, this is why we cant craft a perfect rule. Watch out! Both are masculine in Spanish, but when translated to French they become feminine even though the words are almost exactly the same: la couleur, la dent. Voy a viajar a Mxico durante las vacaciones de verano. This means that every time you use a noun, you must express whether its a feminine or masculine word. Some examples are hijo (son), zapato (shoe) and mono (monkey). All of the nouns ending with -o are usually masculine: el bolgrafo, el dinero, el edificio, el vaso, etc. And since we are here, this is one of my favorite songs in Spanish! I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. Conseiller(re) aux ventes Corbeil lectromnager recherche une personne qui aime offrir aux clients une exprience de magasinage remarquable et qui a un bon sens de l'analyse des besoins. El patn elctrico es muy prctico. To put it in simple terms, if youre working with a Spanish masculine noun, you must make sure its modifiers are also masculine. La noche - the night. From students and tourists to doctors and soldiers whove moved and visited here over the years. If it is a female doctor it would be: LA doctorA (we said that only those occupations ending in -e never change endings, and most ending in -a never change the ending). 1) For example, the days (el da), months (el mes), and years (el ao) are masculine; while letters of the alphabet (la letra) and the hours (la hora) of the day are feminine. Because aguas is plural in the second example, the s on the end of the article las breaks up the stressed a in aguas. However, this doesnt mean that all words that end with an -a are feminine. You know that people and animals are masculine or feminine, but did you know that nouns in Spanish have gender? Hay cien sillas disponibles. . However, the word persona is always a feminine word. Otherwise, it would sound like laaagua. For instance, when the word for a person or occupation ends in -e. When occupations end in -a it gets messy. Dont worry! La foto, can actually shed some light into one of the rules for feminine words. Get a Step-by-Step Map to Learning Spanish. El ni o - the male child / la ni a - the female child. 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 Some of the exceptions occur because of how the words were treated in other languages, such as Latin and Greek. vacation translate: vacances [feminine, plural], vacances [feminine, plural], passer ses vacances, vacances, passer des. Ese color es bonito. El maquillaje de Claudia es muy bueno. Encarga doscientas galletas.Order two hundred cookies. El ao que viene voy a tomarme unas vacaciones en Europa. You may have come across this strange exception before where the masculine article el is used for a feminine word. In the sections below, youll find tables with the most common endings for masculine words in Spanish. But fortunately, Spanish grammatical gender does have some rules you can follow to figure out when you needel and when you needla. This name is also derived from the Hebrew name Yitzhak which means ' one who rejoices.'. However, there are a few masculine nouns that end in -a. You are too stressed out; you should go on holiday. (Check out this link to learn how to use articles in Spanish). Colors are always masculine, even if they end with -a: el rojo, el negro, el azul, el naranja, el prpura, etc. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. Instead of learning: libro = book, try committing to memory: EL libro = The book. Names of rivers, oceans, and seas are always masculine: el Ro de la Plata, el Amazonas, el Misisipi, el Atlntico, el Pacfico, el Mediterrneo, etc. Quiero un rojo ms intenso. Those singers are Spanish. La botella de Suzy est vaca. Even if the nouns are in singular! Memorizing just the exceptions will be a lot easier than memorizing every single word in the Spanish language. Nouns ending with -a are usually feminine: la mesa, la cama, la casa, la palabra, etc. thelanguagetutors Follow Advertisement Recommended Spanish Lesson - Lesson 3: Definite and Indefinite articles Swagatam Mitra 3.5k views 9 slides el gato male cat Therefore, its correct to say: Tengo cien pesos. The grammatical gender is an arbitrary classification that divides nouns into two types: masculines or feminines. El nino y el gato. 1000 5th St, suite 200 Learn more in the Cambridge English-French Dictionary. Mi gatita est enferma. As mentioned above, this rule comes into effect with amounts superior to two hundred. 08, 2020, https://lingualinkup.com/el-la-spanish/, Masculine and Feminine in Spanish (el & la): The Rules & Their Many Exceptions. They have a master's degrees in English from Southeast Missouri State University and a master's degree in Spanish literature from the University of Missouri Columbia. The articles which accompany a masculine noun are el (definite) / uno (indefinite), while the feminine ones are la (definite) / una (indefinite) . by Mgomezhernandez. In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. Because of this, he has really hard opinions about AP Style. Why is a car masculine but a house feminine? They actually come from Ancient Greek and they are all masculine: el dilema, el emblema, el teorema, el fonema, el lexema. So how come it's "el problema" and not "la problema" since "el" should always modify a masculine noun and "la" a feminine noun. Recuerdas aquella vez que estuvimos de vacaciones en Vermont? The last three of them are actually abbreviations of feminine compound words: la radiofona, la motocicleta, la fotografa. This rule is only applicable to the following numbers: Tengo doscientos pesos. I like the pink dress. Dialogues in Spanish - English on 123dialogues channel: https://www.youtube.com/123dialogues Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/youstudyspanishBlog: http://y. With these rules below, youll know which to use with every word el or la. To do so, youll use Spanish articles, adjectives, or pronouns. The same goes for some words that end in -o that are actually feminine: la mano, la radio, la foto, etc. These apples are very sour. Why? Larry fue a Londres un par de das durante las vacaciones, El ao pasado pasamos unas vacaciones maravillosas en Mallorca. La periodista es muy insistente. We know that a person can be a man or a woman. When referring to people or animals, most of the time Spanish nouns can be transformed into feminine words by simply replacing the -o with an -a. The judge is always on time. If a word ends with these three letters, you can be almost certain its a feminine noun. First of all, what is a noun? Yet it behaves like a feminine noun. Both are fem. Benoit Hamon, CEO de SINGA, est venu sur Komune pour donner des faits face aux ides Nouns that end with -ma, -pa, -ta, or any of the letters in the word LONERS are usually masculine. Names of lakes, oceans, seas, and rivers. However, with some specific nouns (especially when we talk about professions) we do replace the -e with an -a, and both forms are correct: El presidente -> La presidente / La presidenta. When you are starting out in Spanish knowing the gender of nouns is very difficult. However, the gender in Spanish language can be really tricky sometimes. But be careful! This free website is created with love and a great deal of work. * This is the only word ending in -ua that takes a masculine article. Nouns in Spanish can be either feminine or masculine, and this distinction can often seem illogical to people who don't speak Spanish. Dijiste que the letters of the alphabet are masculine, pero son feminine, Muchas gracias, Ann! The mechanic works every day. La familia se fue de vacaciones a Mjico. "Water" in Spanish is not masculine. Two other endings for feminine nouns are -dad / -tad, like in felicidad (happiness) and amistad (friendship). I want a more intense red. Most nouns that end in "a" are feminine nouns. I like the pink dress. Lesson outline 1. I like the red bag more. I hope you have enjoyed this article about masculine and feminine in Spanish! Also, notice that there are masculine nouns that end in -l, -z, and -n. I would recommend you learn the following by heart. It is usually at the end of words that describe people, like artista (artist) and realista (realist). In Spanish, all nouns have a gender. Here are the exceptions to this rule. Even though Spanish is a language of exceptions, there are a few guidelines that can help when wanting to determine if a noun is feminine or masculine. El Amazonas es el ro ms largo del mundo. Every single noun in Spanish has a gender: feminine or masculine. Words ending in -ed (if the stress falls on this syllable). Follow this link if you want to know WHY nouns have a gender in Spanish. For living things (such as people and animals), the grammatical gender is associated with the biological gender: El perro de Luis es blanco. places and ideas. Check these examples of sentences with colors in Spanish: El rosa es mi color preferido. In . Common exceptions: not feminine, masculine El mapa- the map- masculine El da- the day- masculine. You will get new updates by email, as well as a copy of my ebook, the Definitive Guide to Learn Conjugations in Spanish. Animals With A Regular Masculine And Feminine Form. As you can see, below that chart, you'll then see the "el" & "la . So, its important to memorize the feminine words that end with the consonant z. Sus zapatos son muy caros. 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. So far, youve learned some of the most common endings used to form feminine and masculine words in Spanish and their exceptions. (in summer) a. veranear Copyright 2006 Harrap Publishers Limited vacation noun 1 especially (Britain) (Jur) receso (m) vacacional (formal); periodo (m) vacacional On the other hand, when working as nouns, Spanish colors are always masculine. The adjective for Italia is italiano. Spanish gender can be a challenging topic for many new and advanced learners. Everything weve ever written about Spanish, all in one place. Below youll find a list of words and be able to find out for yourself if it is masculine (el) or feminine (la). No me di cuenta, ya lo correg , Your email address will not be published. Therefore, "red" is "rojo" but it becomes "roja" with a. El plato es blanco con rayas azules. *People, animals and occupations have their own set of rules. Lessons for Adults & Kids. We know that all people have gender, but in Spanish all nouns have gender. There are some nouns that end in a, but they are not feminine, but masculine: And vice versa, some nouns that end in -o are feminine: When a masculine noun ends in a consonant, its feminine form ends in a (We just have to had an a after that last consonant). is vacation in spanish masculine or feminine. Nuestros perros son pequeos. Lucia has very nice qualities. Singapur es muy caro. An exception is nene (colloquial term for little kid): el nene -> la nena. Tu vecina es muy ruidosa. However your friend is a hypochondriac and you need to assure him/her everything is going to be fine. The following Spanish nouns all denote living creatures. and the Spanish Civil War failed in reality to place him in a distinctly different camp from Chamberlain and . My horse is black and my mare brown. Not knowing if a word is feminine or masculine in Spanish can lead to poor communication and, in some cases, misunderstandings. Tu casa es grande y bonita. Whether its a good idea to split the world into two genders is a subject for a different article, but for now well go through the various kinds of nouns that switch genders. Spanish speakers always like to have vacations in plural. Given that its key for your conversations and it can also help you practice this spelling change, in this guide, well learn the probar conjugation Hola! That means you have to know when to use El or La for every single noun. (Administration) vacancy vacances plural feminine noun holidays pluriel (Brit) holiday (Brit) vacation (USA) les grandes vacances the summer holidays (Brit) the summer vacation (USA) prendre des vacances to take a holiday (Brit) to take a vacation (USA) prendre ses vacances to take one's holidays (Brit) to take one's vacation (USA) Copyright 2006 Harrap Publishers Limited. All of these expressions, as well as a number of others, have one thing in common. [Determiner] + [noun] + [verb conjugated] + [adjective]. The standard rules are here on the top of the page, but you shouldn't trust them fully. Over time we've worked to perfect every minute of every learning session. 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? boeing 767 patriot express. In the tables below, youll find the most common endings for feminine words in Spanish. During the day Im a freelancer and online marketer, while at night Im here writing for students of the world wide web looking to learn Spanish. This semester is really tough. This is the only noun ending that does not have a guideline gender classification. Ese rbol es muy viejo. Browse Spanish translations from Spain, Mexico, or any other Spanish-speaking country. These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. La comida estuvo muy rica. Because the gender of the noun changes the article or adjective that you can use with the noun. My students are already speaking Spanish and using it in their everyday lives. You could possibly sayel tortugo to refer to a male turtle, but it might get you a weird look or two. Got all that? Tweet. The Verb To Need: Sometimes you Really Need it. The Masculine and feminine 2 Whack-a-mole. El frica El Agua- Las Agua (plural) the waters Words ending simply in -inare often masculine, as in: el camin, el avin, etc., so bear that in mind! It's a good place to start for beginners though! Esa cantante es muy talentosa. Pink is my favorite color. 501 lessons. La luz es bastante brillante. Im always glad to reach and help more people around the world. Do you have any QUESTION or comment about Spanish language? Soy Daniela Sanchez, Ive taught Spanish in Mexico to a wide array of foreigners. It's important to remember that the gender of a noun refers only to the grammar of the word, not to the person that it refers to. This allows us to ease the pronunciation! 2. The dish is white with blue stripes. las vacaciones de Navidad, las vacaciones de Pascua, las vacaciones de verano. The same goes for nouns ending with -or: el amor, el dolor, el error, el sabor, etc. However, on top of its irregularities, this verb also has E to I and E to IE stem changes in certain tenses. In Spanish nationalities are expressed through origin adjectives (known as gentilicios in Spanish). Usted is used to speak in a more professional manner. Passive Voice in Spanish: Examples & Practice, Psychological Research & Experimental Design, All Teacher Certification Test Prep Courses, What are Cognates in Spanish? If a color is working as a Spanish adjective, it will need to change its gender to agree with the noun unless such a color ends with a consonant or -e. And it gets easier with time and practice. In Spanish, some nouns use different words for the masculine and feminine forms. Our tutors at Fluenz Spanish Immersion like to explain the noun gender in this way: Think of the article almost as part of the word. The Amazon River is the worlds largest river. The kids play in the park. Janet Long has taught post-secondary Spanish and English for over 15 years. tony bloom starlizard. La mochila roja me gusta ms. When you first start learning Spanish, grammatical gender can seem arbitrary and confusing. ). My kitty is sick. Grammatical gender is a property of Spanish nouns. So with people you may not know well, perhaps someone older, or people of authority/higher status than oneself such as a college professor. Feminine or masculine? Take Note: You can also imply the gender of these nouns by saying the name of the person youre talking about. Our car is dirty. Because there area lot. They wish that they were in love now. La maestra tiene dos gatitas.The teacher has two kitties. 1. For those interested in a little history, masculine Spanish nouns that end in-ta,-pa and-ma tend to come from Greek originally. But dont worry, were going to give you a framework to work with. The Philippines (/ f l p i n z / (); Filipino: Pilipinas), officially the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas), is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia.It is situated in the western Pacific Ocean and consists of around 7,641 islands that are broadly categorized under three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. b. holiday (United Kingdom) Ests muy estresado; necesitas irte de vacaciones.You are too stressed out; you should go on holiday. "Favourite" is "favorito" in Spanish. Sometimes the word just breaks the rules, and we have to memorize that they are different, such as la mano (hand). In any case, if a word has any of the following endings you can be absolutely sure that it is masculine. Names of rivers, lakes, and oceans are usually masculine; names of mountains are usually feminine. Access millions of accurate translations written by our team of experienced English-Spanish translators. If you have studied Spanish, you are painfully aware of this. One ending with a final -a, -ista, can be used on words for male or female people, and is both masculine and feminine. Masculine nouns are used with articles like el or un and have adjectives that end in -o, while female nouns use the articles la or una and have adjectives that end in -a. Have you tried it yet? Helpful, right? Making educational experiences better for everyone. There is one other ending that ends in -a, -ista, that is actually both feminine and masculine. Most Spanish nouns ending in -o are masculine, and most ending in -a are feminine, but there are exceptions. Your neighbor is very noisy. To keep the sentence consistent, adjectives, articles, and pronouns must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. NOTE: The masculine gender has been used for brevity and includes the feminine gender. As you can see, there are adjectives that follow the regular rule for endings using -o/-as/-os/-as (rojo, amarillo, negro, blanco, morado). While some exceptions (like la mano) are just exceptions, many words that seemingly end in -o are actually shortenings of other words. -Fue un lunes, -Ha sido un septiembre hmedo -Nac en el 84 -Son las cinco y cuarto -Poner los puntos sobre las es -La hache delante de la 'a' es muda Spanish Language Dictations Level Beginner #001. What does the root Manus mean? But really, the LONERS rule will work for you almost every time. Therefore, vestido (dress) is actually a masculine noun. For example, la mano (hand) & el da (day). Although words that end in -a are usually feminine, we already know that the words with -ma at the end of them are masculine. We said words that end in -or are masculine. Hay un frente fro en la ciudad. Can vacaciones be singular? 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. What gender is the sea in your mind? We said all words ending in -a are feminine. Since it can be challenging to conjugate, well Probar Conjugation 101: Conjugate Probar in Spanish. There are some rules to determine if a noun is masculine of feminine. -Tud, like in the word actitud (attitude) is also a common ending for feminine nouns. Miami Beach, FL 33139, All Rights Reserved, 2017-2023. While most nouns that end with a particular consonant or vowel are generally classified as either masculine or feminine, nouns that end with z do not follow a guideline. My mom has a cherry tree. You will need to memorize rule-breaking words like la mano (hand) and el d'ia (day). Los peces son muy bonitos. As a result, here are some frequently asked questions that most of my students usually have. Just like photo is an abbreviation of photograph,fotois the short way of saying fotografa. FR8 En Ville - Location Sort - Masculine/Feminine Group sort. Me gusta la vestido rosa. (2020,May 08 ). Now lets see how to know if a word is masculine or feminine in Spanish when talking about people and animals. Nouns ending in -o, an accented vowel, -or, or -aje are usually masculine. When using demonstrative pronouns (esta, esa, aquella) with these words, they stay feminine. The Spanish gender can be distinguished with certain endings or by checking the gender of the adjectives, pronouns and Spanish articles surrounding that word. Exceptions: la mano, la radio, la moto, la foto. 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. Why? Why? Theres a cold front in the city. Fluenz Fluenz Blog Learn Spanish Basic Spanish El or La? His shoes are very expensive. That tree is very old. Composition 2 - 1020 Tema: Vacation plans Imagine you are planning your next vacation with your best friend to a Spanish speaking country or a specific city (assigned by your instructor). 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). Men wish that they had been warriors, or are proud that they once were. All rights reserved. Subscribe to the Lawless Spanish newsletter, New lessons and features in your inbox every Thursday.
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