The gender and number of

nouns  1

23 Jan, 2012   in Spanish Blog    tagged  ELE   / ELE - A1   / feminine   / genre of

nouns   / masculine   / nouns   / number of
nouns   / plurar   / singular   / Spanish   / Video   by María Ortega García

 GENRE: masculine – feminine

All the nouns in Spanish have genre, they are masculine or feminine.
There are few rules that help us to decide what is the genre of the
noun:
– In general, all nouns that end in:  -o, -ón and -r are masculine.
el perro – the dog                           el teclado – the keyboard
el libro – the book                         el cuaderno – the notebook
– In general, all nouns that end in  -a, -ción, -sión, -dad, -tad  are
feminine.
la rata – the rat                               la casa – the house
la canción – the song                   la motivación – the motivation
la verdad – the truth                     la piedad – the mercy
la libertad  – the liberty               la amistad – the friendship
But there are a lot of exceptions:
el mapa – the map
la mano – the hand
el problema – the problem
– The nouns that end in  -e or in other consonants can be masculine or
feminine.
la nube – the cloud                         el hombre – the man
el árbol – the tree                           la miel – the honey
– The nouns that end in  -ista can be masculine and feminine (because
they are professions)
el, la periodista – the journalist 
el, la masajista – the masseur
 Masculine to Feminine : In order to change a masculine word into
a feminine one, for the professions for instance, we have this 3
rules:

1. The words that end in -o change the “o” into an “a”

el fotógrafo > la fotógrafa – the photographer
el panadero > la panadera – the baker

1. The words that end in consonant add an “a”

el profesor > la profesora – the teacher
el boxeador > la boxeadora – the boxer
el escritor > la escritora – the writer

1. The words that end in “e”:

3.1 don’t change
el cantante > la cantante – the singer
el estudiante > la estudiante – the student
3.2 change the “e” for an “a”
el dependiente > la dependienta – the shop assistant

 There are nouns that have a word for masculine and another for
feminine:

el padre / la madre – the father / the mother

el toro / la vaca –  the bull / the cow
el gallo / la gallina –  the rooster / the hen

 NUMBER: singular – plural

There are two rules to transform a singular noun into plural:

1. Add an “s”

el perro > los perros

la casa > las casas
 1. Add “es” with the words that end in consonant.

el profesor > los profesores

la canción > las canciones
2.1 When the word end in “z” it changes to “c” and add “es”
el pez > los peces
 
Finally, if you want to practice your listening skills, here I leave you
with a video class about this topic in Spanish with subtitles in Spanish.
DELE prep A1-C2  https://mariaortegagarcia.com/info-about-dele/
Join my groups  https://mariaortegagarcia.com/connect/

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One thought on “The gender and number of

nouns”

Reply   ↓
Chelda March 20, 2012 at 3:51 pm
If only languages were learly so logical Like Spanish, German has a strict rule
for associating gender with every noun. There is not only Masculine and
Feminine but also Neutral (like it’ in English). The things get more
complicated when the genders switch forms with tenses and grammar
structure. There is absolutely no logic behind these genders, and they have
apparently just come into usage’ with time. For example:Water is neutral and
so is Beer. Milk is feminine and wine is Masculine.Train is masculine, Car is
neutral.Boy is masculine, but girl is neutral.Sun is feminine, moon is
masculine.goes on and on Hindi is so much better !!

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