Learning Spanish Part No 3
Spanish Nouns Part 3
Determining
gender from noun endings
1. Nouns ending in – o and – a
Those
ending in – o are usually masculine, while those ending in – a are usually
femining, but there are exceptions,
The words ending in - sta.
La mano
“hand” and abbreviated forms such as la foto “photographs”, la moto
“motorcycle”, radio and radiodifusion.
El dia
“day”, el mapa “map”, “el planeta” planet, “el tranvia” tram,
There are
also nouns ending in –a but referring to men as el cura (priest), el poeta
(poet)
A large
number of words ending in – ma but they are not masculine
The
majority of them are the following
El aroma
(aroma) - El hologram (hologram)
El clima
(climate) - El idioma (language)
El
crucigrama (crossword) - El lema
(slogan)
El diagram
(diagram) - El panorama (panorama)
El dilemma
(dilemma) - El pijama (pyjamas)
El diploma (diploma) - El poema
El dogma
(dogma) - El problema
El drama (drama) - El programa
El emblem
(emblem) - El sintoma
El enigma
(enigma) – el sistema (system)
El esquma
(scheme - El telegram (telegram)
El estigma
(stigma) – El trauma (trauma)
El fantasma
(ghost) - El tema (theme / topic)
2. Feminine endings other than – a
Nouns
ending with the following endings are usually feminine – ad, - tud, - cion, -
sion, - umbre and – ie. Many of them are abstract nouns relating to concepts
rather than persons or physical objects.
La carldad
(charity) la solicitud (application)
La
acusacion (accusation) la decision
(decision)
La cumbre
(summit) la especie dspecies)
Exceptions
– El pie (foot), also words ending in – triz. La matriz (uterus), (master
copy), la cicatriz (scar).
Also, we
have to be very careful when we use words ending in – is, the majority of them
are feminine such as la crisis (crisis),
la tesis (thesis) but some common “words are masculine” as el enfasis
(emphasis), el analisis (analysis).
3. Masculine endings other than –o
Nouns with
the following endings are usually masculine : - aje, - ambre, - an, -en, - or
and a stressed vowel.
El tatuaje
(tattoo) el flambre (cold meat)
El gaban
(overcoat) el almacen (warehouse / store)
El
interruptor (switch) el piruli (lollpop)
Also there
are exceptions such as la flor (flower), la labor (labour), “sewing” and el
hambre (hunger).
4. Categories of nouns predictably masculine
In the case
of many proper nouns (or names), the gender is taken from an associated but
unmentioned masculine noun.
Proper
nouns designating a natural feature are typically masculine, with exceptions
such as rio “river”, monte “mont
El Amazonas
(the Amazon) El Aconcagua (Mt. Aconcagua
El
Titicaca (Lake Titicaca) El Atlantico (The Atlantic )
There is
also exceptions occur when the same is based on a feminine noun: la Sierra Nevada .
Proper
nouns relating to methods of transport are typically masculine. There is also a
number of unmentioned masculine noun such as tren (train), avion (airplane),
cohe / carro (car), barco (boat/ship)
El AVE
(high speed train)
El Concord
Un Citroen
El Santa Rosa
Masculine
also are paintings, wine, teams, colours, points of the compass, days and
months (due to unmentioned masculine nouns such as cuadro (painting), vino
(wine), dia (day) etc
Un Goya (a
painting by Goya) El Rioja (Rioja
Wine)
El Betis (Seville
El nordeste
(north east) el miercoles (Wednesday)
Names of
trees and shrubs (especially fruit – bearing ones) are normally masculine
El naranjo
(orange tree) el castano (chestnut
tree)
Some fruits
are feminine naranja, castana, olive aceituna but others are masculine like the
tree limonero / limon (lemon tree / fruit), aguacate (avocado tree and fruit).
5. Categories of nouns predictably feminine
There are
rather more limited in number than their masculine counterparts. The categories
are – letters of the alphabet, islands, companies and roads (letra “letter”,
isla “island”, compania “company”, carretera “road”.
Las haches
(the hs) las Galapagos (the Galapagos)
La
Seat la panamerican
Names of
countries, regions and towns
Place names
ending in unstressed – a are feminine and the rest are masculine
El Euador Bolivia (fem)
Panama
El Sanlucar
(modern Sanlucar) la Huelva (historic Huelva
There is
also another category of nouns in Spanish language which have a different
meaning if they are in masculine and feminine form
Masculine
Feminine
El capital –
capital money La
capital – capital (city)
El colera –
cholera (sickness) La
colera – anger
El cometa –
comet La
cometa – kite
El corte –
cut La corte – royal court
El frente –
front La frente –
forehead
El margen –
margin La
margen – river / bank
El orden –
order La orden –
command
El Papa - the Pope La papa –
potato
El parte – dispatch,
report La parte –
part, portion
El
pendiente – earring La pendiente –
slope
El pez –
fish (in water)
La pez – (pitch, tar)
Also there
are nouns signifying groups of persons may also refer to individual male or
female members of that group.
Feminine Mascouline
La guardia (guard,
company) El guardia (male
guard)
La policia
(the police force) El
policia (policeman)
La guia
(guide book) El guia (male guide)
La vigia
(lookout, post) El vigia (watchman)
La banca
(the banking system) El banco (bank)
La fruta
(fruit – edible) El fruto (product, result)
La bolsa
(plastic bag) El bolso (handbag)
6. Nouns of doubtful gender
(a). Mar (sea) The majority of speakers use the noun as a masculine. But the
feminine form is always used for some expressions la pleamar / bajamar (high /
low tide), en alta mar (on the high seas), hacerse a la mar (to put to sea).
(b). Azucar “sugar”, widely used as masculine but occurs commonly with
feminine adjectives in forms such as azucar blanca “white sugar”, extrafina “caster
/ o”, granulada “granulated”.
C. Arte “art” usually is a masculine
noun in singular but always a feminine in the plural form : las bellas artes “the
fine arts”.
On the following video, yopu can watch the Spanish Alphabet with a very interesting point of view.
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