Nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine. The most common way to determine the gender of a noun is through its ending. Most nouns that end in –o are masculine. For example:
Foto: Federico Casares CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 |
 el barrio |
el cuaderno |
Most nouns that end in -a are feminine. For instance:
The gender of nouns is an inherent property, meaning that it cannot be changed. You might have the impression that you can change the gender in nouns by switching the –o to –a or vice versa. However, if you change the gender ending of a noun, you are often changing the meaning of the noun and talking about something or someone else. For example:
Foto: Pablo Gonzalez CC BY-SA 2.0 |
Foto: Art Explosion |
| el caso |
la casa |
| el libro |
la libra |
The first set of nouns you will learn about are those that refer to animate beings. With such nouns, the gender is consistent with the biological sex of the person or animal. These nouns can be divided according to some general patterns.
There are sometimes two completely different words to designate the person/animal according to his/her biological sex.
| el hombre |
la mujer |
| el caballo |
la yegua |
| el toro |
la vaca |
Some words are almost identical, but differ only in the ending (-o or –a) in order to designate the biological sex.
Foto: Art Explosion |
Foto: Virginia Kannemann CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 |
| el perro |
la perra |
| el niño |
la niña |
For some nouns that end in a consonant in the masculine form, you can add an –a in order to make the feminine form.
| el director |
la directora |
| el doctor |
la doctora |
Foto: Cody Kwok CC BY-NC 2.0 |
Foto: Sarmale CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 |
In some cases, the same word is used to refer to either a male or female. In this case, the gender of the definite or indefinite article lets you know if the speaker is referring to a male or a female.
| el periodista |
la periodista |
| el deportista |
la deportista |
| el estudiante |
la estudiante |
Note that these nouns end in –ista or –ante or –ente and are related to jobs, pastimes, beliefs, or ideologies.
In order to know the gender of a noun, there are some other general indicators in addition to the ones you have just learned.
Nouns that end in –tad or –dad are feminine.
Foto: Dave Reichert CC BY-NC 2.0 |
la dificultad |
Most nouns that end in –ión are feminine.
Many nouns that end in –ez are feminine.
Most nouns that end in –umbre are feminine.
Foto: Juan Pablo Aqueveque CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 |
la costumbre |
Most nouns that end in –tud are feminine.
There are many nouns that end in –e. There is no rule for these and you will learn them with practice and repetition; some are masculine, such as:
Others are feminine, such as:
There are some important exceptions to the general rule that nouns that end in –o are masculine and noun that end in –a are feminine. These words are very common, so you will probably find it useful to keep them in mind!
While you learned that nouns ending in –a are usually feminine, there are several that are masculine. These nouns are borrowed from Greek and we have many of them as cognates in English.
