Spanish Gender and Nouns
Nouns are used to name all sorts of things: people, animals, objects, places and etc. In order to use nouns correctly in Spanish, we need to know their grammatical gender. It doesn't mean that all of the objects have gender or physically feminine or masculine.

Nouns in Spanish have genders in a grammatical sense while it is used with articles and adjectives that match their gender.

Gender in Spanish
Here are three main groups of nouns in Spanish.

• Nouns that end in -o (niño ‘child’, enojo ‘anger’).
• Nouns that end in -a (casa ‘house’, ballena ‘whale’).
• Nouns that end in -e or a consonant (tomate ‘tomato’, tenedor ‘fork’).

Determining Gender with Ending
Nouns ending in “o” and “a”
Rule
Most of the masculine nouns end with an “-o”.

• el teatro (the theater)
• el maestro (the teacher)
• el libro (the book)

Rule
Most of the feminine nouns end with an “-a”.

• la calle (the street)
• la colita (the tail)
• la hamaca (the hammock)

We can conclude that, nouns ending with an “-o” are mostly masculine and nouns ending with an “-a” are feminine. While for nouns ending with an “-e” or a consonant can be either both genders.

But there are still cases where the rules above is not applicable.

FEMININE NOUNS END WITH “-o”	MASCULINE NOUNS END WITH “-a”
la mano (hand)	el drama (drama)
la foto (photograph)	el mapa (map)
la moto (motorcycle)	el idioma (language)
la radio (radio)	el problema (problem)

 

Feminine endings other than “-a”
Rule
Nouns with the following endings are usually feminine: “-z”, “-dad”, “-tud”, “-ción”, “-sión”, “-umbre” and “-ie”. These nouns are abstract nouns where their gender is not being determined by physical.

FEMININE ENDING	EXAMPLE
z	la cicatriz (scar)
ad	la felicidad (happiness)
tud	la juventud (youth)
ción	la emoción (emotion)
sión	la inversión (investment)
umbre	la cumbre (summit)
ie	la serie (series)

 

Masculine endings other than “-o”
Rule
Nouns end with “-aje”, “-bre”, “-án”, “-or”, “-és”, “-ón” and stressed vowel are generally masculine.

MASCULINE ENDING	EXAMPLE
aje	el tatuaje (tattooing)
bre	el nombre (name)
án	el alacrán (scorpion)
or	el escultor (sculptor)
és	el francés (Frenchman)
ón	el cinturón (belt)
Stressed vowel	el pirulí (lollipop), el ualabí (wallaby), el sofá (sofa

 

Ending "-e” in Spanish Nouns
Rule
Some endings don’t reveal the gender of the word. For example, the ending “-e” can occur in either both genders. Other than that, the ending “-te” and “-ista” can also be applicable for both genders.

EXAMPLE
el/ la coche (car),	el/ la cantante (singer)
el/ la noche (night)	el/ la futbolista (footballer)

Tips
Here is a n interesting way of remembering some certain gender of Spanish nouns. We know that nouns ending with "-a” is usually feminine, but it is funny that in words ending with “-ma” is actually masculine, while words ending with “-dad” is feminine.

We can say that “-ma” is masculine while “-dad” is feminine.

 

Same Nouns but Different Meaning in Gender
There are a few situations where the same word can have two completely different meanings, one when used with a feminine article and another when used with a masculine article.

FEMININE	MASCULINE
el capital (money)	la capital (city)
el guía (tour guide)	la guía (guidebook)
el frente (front)	el frente (forehead)
el cometa (comet)	la  cometa (kite)

 

Article to Determine the Gender
Rule
Another way to determine the gender of nouns is to look at the article. Nouns starts with “el” or “los” are masculine nouns, while for the feminine nouns is “la” and “las”.

MASCULINE		FEMININE
SINGULAR	PLURAL	SINGULAR	PLURAL
el	los	la	las

Nouns referring to persons or animals
Replacing “-o” with “-a”
Rule
If a masculine noun ends in “o”, often its feminine equivalent is derived by replacing the “o” into “a”.

NOUN	MASCULINE	FEMININE
Fox/ vixen	el zorro	la zorra
Lizard	el lagarto	la lagarta
Son/ daughter	el hijo	la hija
Secretary	el secretario	la secretaria

 

Adding an “-a” to the Ending
Rule
For masculine nouns ending in a consonant, especially “or”, “ón”, “és” and “ín”, the feminine equivalent is formed by adding an “-a”.

NOUN	MASCULINE	FEMININE
Dancer	el bailarín	la bailarina
Hairdresser	el peluquero	la peluquera
Lizard	el lagarto	la lagarta
Donkey	el burro	la burra

 

Adding an “-esa” or “-isa” to the Ending
Rule
For some of the masculline nouns, we remove the final vowel and replace it with a feminine ending “-esa” or “-isa”.

NOUN	MASCULINE	FEMININE
Prophet/ prophetess	el profeta	la profetisa
Prince/ princess	el principe	la princesa
Tiger/ tigress	el tigre	la tigresa

B. Nouns that End in a Vowel
Nouns end with consonant
Rule
Adding “-es” to the ending of nouns with consonant other than “-s”. This rule also applies to singular nouns end with stressed final + all consonant.
Tips
When a singular noun ends in “-z”, change the “-z” to a “-c” before adding “-es”.
When a singular noun ends with a syllable of “stressed vowel + consonant”, the “accent” will be removed.

NOUN	SINGULAR	PLURAL
Month	el mes	el meses
Button	el botón	el botónes
King/ king and queen	el rey	los reyes
Actress	la actriz	las actrices
Bus	el autobús	los autobuses

 

Nouns end with consonant “-s”
Rule
The plural form of nouns ending with “-s” should remain unchanged.

NOUN	SINGULAR	PLURAL
Cactus	el cactus	los cactus
Thursday	el jueves	los jueves
Virus	el virus	los virus

 

Foreign Words in Spanish Nouns
Rule
If it’s a foreign word, just add “-s”.

NOUN	SINGULAR	PLURAL
Hacker	el hacker	los hackers
Barman	el barman	los barman

 

Forever Plural Nouns
Rule
Some nouns are always in plural form, let’s see the below table.

NOUN	PLURAL
Scissors	las tijeras
Glasses	gafas

 

Uncountable Nouns
Rule
Uncountable nouns are also called as mass nouns. Common types of uncountable nouns include personal qualities, liquid and abstractions. You won’t count “happiness” as “one happiness, two happiness, three happiness...”.

NOUN	PLURAL
Patience	la paciencia
Courage	el valor