Every single noun in Spanish has a gender: feminine or masculine. That means you have to know when to use ‘El’ or ‘La’ for every single noun. If you have studied Spanish, you are painfully aware of this.
For English speakers, it is hard to determine when a noun is feminine or masculine simply because nouns in English have no gender.
Because gender is such an integral part of learning Spanish your best bet as an English speaker is to acquire each new word with its respective article. 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.
Instead of learning: libro = book, try committing to memory: EL libro = The book
Because coming from English you don’t have any reference to hold on to, sometimes our memory can only recall so much and we mix up the gender. 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. All of these rules use the ending of a word as a trick to determine its gender.
Follow this link if you want to know WHY nouns have a gender in Spanish
That said, we need to get something out of the way before diving into the rules for gender in Spanish.
Debunking the -a is Feminine, -o is Masculine myth
You’ve probably heard this one before: words ending in -a are feminine and words ending in -o are masculine.
While this is actually true for a lot of words, there are so many exceptions to this rule that it often becomes more of a problem than a solution. Very often our students at Fluenz get genders mixed
up when learning new vocab because they had learned this rule of thumb. Just think of the Spanish word for “problem”: el problema!
Now that’s a problem…
The same goes for some words that end in -o that are actually feminine: la mano, la radio, la foto, etc.
La foto, can actually shed some light into one of the rules for feminine words. Just like “photo” is an abbreviation of “photograph”, foto is the short way of saying fotografía.
This brings us to the first rule!
Foolproof Rules to Identify Feminine Nouns in Spanish
As you might have guessed, all of the tricks we’re going to cover use word
endings to determine the gender of a word in Spanish.
ÍA – IA
Words ending in -ía and -ia
ARE ALWAYS FEMININE
- La alcancía = piggy bank
- La cobardía = cowardice
- La alcaldía = town hall
- La biología = biology
- La energía = energy
- La herejía = heresy
- La claustrofobia = claustrophobia
- La rabia = rage
- La violencia = violence
- La farmacia = pharmacy
- La discordia = discord
- La enciclopedia = Encyclopedia
Remember fotografía? Also feminine!
One Exception:
El DIA = THE DAY
“el day” is masculine and is the ONLY exception.
*People, animals and occupations have their own set of rules. It’s
coming up later.
ARA
Words ending in -ara
ARE ALWAYS FEMININE
- La cuchara = spoon
- La lámpara = lamp
- La vara = rod, stick
BRA
Words ending in -bra
ARE ALWAYS FEMININE
- La alfombra = carpet
- La culebra = snake
- La sombra = shadow
CHA
Words ending in -cha
ARE ALWAYS FEMININE
- La avalancha = avalanche
- La cancha = court, sportsfield
- La cosecha = harvest
- La flecha = arrow
- La trucha = trout
CIÓN and SIÓN
Words ending in -ción and -sión
*Note the C, and S
ARE ALWAYS FEMININE
- La canción = song
- La solución = solution
- La televisión = television
- La versión = version
HEADS UP!
Words ending simply in -ión are often masculine, as in: el camión, el avión, etc., so bear that in mind!
DAD, TAD, TUD
Words ending in -dad -tad -tud
ARE ALWAYS FEMININE
- La verdad = truth
- La ciudad = city
- La honestidad = honesty
- La libertad = freedom
- La voluntad = will
- La juventud = youth
- La actitud = attitude
UA and ÚA
Words ending in -ua and úa
ARE ALWAYS FEMININE
- La grúa = crane
- La yegua = mare
One exception:
EL agua = water *
* This is the only word ending in -ua that takes a masculine article. Yet it behaves like a feminine noun. Adjectives describing, agua are feminine. We say EL agua fríA (The cold water). You may have come across this strange exception before where the masculine article el is used for a feminine word.
ED
Words ending in -ed (if the stress falls on this syllable)
ARE ALWAYS FEMININE
- La sed = thirst
- La red = net
- La pared = wall
Helpful, right? Now let’s check out the tricks for masculine nouns in Spanish.
Foolproof Rules for Masculine Nouns in Spanish
Unfortunately, there are not as many rules to know whether a noun in Spanish is masculine. In any case, if a word has any of the following endings you can be absolutely sure that it is masculine.
ARO
Words ending in -aro
ARE ALWAYS MASCULINE
- El descaro = nerve, insolence
- El pájaro = bird
EMO
Words ending in -emo
ARE ALWAYS MASCULINE
- El extremo = extreme
- El remo = oar
ECTO
Words ending in -ecto
ARE ALWAYS MASCULINE
- El afecto = affection, fondness
- El dialecto = dialect
- El proyecto = project
- El trayecto = journey, course
ÍO and IO
Words ending in -ío and ío
ARE ALWAYS MASCULINE
- El cambio = change
- El divorcio = divorce
- El vacío = void, emptiness
- El prejuicio = prejudice
- El monopolio = monopoly
- El frío = cold
- El tío = uncle
OR
Words ending in -or
ARE ALWAYS MASCULINE
- El amor = love
- El calor = heat
- El sabor = taste
- El tambor = drum
ISMO
Words ending in -ismo
ARE ALWAYS MASCULINE
- El abismo = abyss
- El budismo = Buddhism
- El idealismo = idealism
- El terrorismo = terrorism
Words ending in -ismo are simply the Spanish counterparts to the English isms because they share the same Latin root.
ISTA
Words ending in -ista
ARE ALWAYS MASCULINE
- El analista = analyst
- El artista = artist
- El taxista = taxi driver
As you can probably tell, all words that end in -ista denote occupations or stances and such, just like the endings -ist and -yst in English: therapist, marxist, etc. And of course, they are all derived from the isms of the previous rule.
Which brings us to the only exception to these rules!
THE EXCEPTION TO ALL THESE RULES
People, Animals and Occupations
When talking about people, animals and occupations things get a bit blurry. But don’t worry, we’re going to give you a framework to work with.
Regardless of the rules we stated above, if the word is referring to an animal or a person, then the article must correspond to the gender of the animal or person.
Articles always change:
For any person or animal that is masculine, these are the articles to use:
Masculine – people or animals
| EL = The | LOS = The (plural) |
| UN = A | UNOS = Some |
For any person or animal that is feminine, these are the articles to use:
Feminine – people or animals
| LA = The | LAS = The (plural) |
| UNA = A | UNAS = Some |
For example. If you have the word for friend, it refers to a person correct?
So, you would have to establish if that friend is a male or a female to determine which article to use.
If you were referring to a male friend, which article would you use EL or LA?
EL
A female friend?
LA
(Check out this link to learn how to use articles in Spanish)
The endings of nouns sometimes change:
The endings are not so obvious. More often than not, the endings change according to the gender of the person or animal:
| El amigo | The friend (male) | La amiga | The friend (female) |
| El hermano | The brother | La hermana | The sister |
| El doctor | The doctor | La doctora | The doctor (female) |
| El maestro | The teacher (male) | La maestra | The teacher (female) |
| El niño | The boy | La niña | The girl |
| El lobo | The wolf | La loba | The wolf (female) |
| El gato | The cat | La gata | The cat (female) |
Sometimes only the article changes. For instance, when the word for a person or occupation ends in -e
| El cantante | The singer (male) | La cantante | The singer (female) |
| El visitante | The visitor (male) | The visitante | The visitor (female) |
When occupations end in -a it gets messy. If the occupation ends in -a it tends not to change.
| El guía | The guide (male) | La guía | The guide (female) |
| El espía | The spy (male) | La espía | The spy (female) |
| El pianista | The pianist (male) | La pianista | The pianist (female) |
I know we said we would only be giving you rules that didn’t have any exceptions, the rules above are full proof- it’s when you get to people and occupations where you need to put your thinking cap on. And it gets easier with time and practice.
If you know your endings and what gender they fall into, the onlyexception to keep in mind is when the word refers to a person, an animal or an occupation because the person or animal will determine the gender of the word.
How to use the exception to the rules above
Example 1:
We said all words ending in -ìa are feminine. Yet if you are referring to a person or occupation this is what happens:
EL espía = The spy (if the spy is a man)
LA espía = The spy (if the spy is a woman.
It’s the person’s gender that will determine whether we use el or la. And because it is an occupation, we said that those that end in -a, tend to stay the same.
Example 2:
What about the word for doctor? Doctor
We said words that end in -or are masculine. But since doctor refers to a person and an occupation, it’s the gender of the doctor that will determine the article and ending. 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).
EL doctor – The doctor (male)
LA doctorA – The doctor (female)
When you are starting out in Spanish knowing the gender of nouns is very difficult. But it is something that even advanced students mix up once in a while. And to make things more interesting, the fact is that with time, languages evolve and change.
Feminine or masculine? A permanent discussion
Within the Fluenz team, amongst us who Spanish is our first language we still have numerous discussions on whether certain words are masculine or feminine.
This discussion is especially alive with occupations. The words doctorA, arquitectA, are relatively new, this is why we can’t craft a perfect rule. But for example to most of us the word médicA sounds wrong- we wouldn’t use it. We would say El médicO, La médicO. Why? Well the answer is just because 🙂
If you look at texts 30 years ago you would never find LA arquitectA, it would have been LA arquitectO. But that has changed with time, and thus we end up with rules that are blurry which do not help when those starting to learn Spanish. But that is also the beauty of a language, and the fact that it is alive and evolving is one of the elements that I find personally interesting.
In both the Fluenz online program and the Fluenz Spanish Immersions, we take it one step at a time. If you are starting to learn Spanish, we only introduce the concept of gender differences a couple of sessions in. Little by little, and loads of practice is the best remedy.
Best of luck!
Here are two articles that help shed some light on the subject:
Puzzle Solved: Why nouns in Spanish are feminine and masculine
The Ultimate Tip-Sheet to Articles in Spanish: (“El” vs. “La”, “Un” vs. “Una”)