La gramatica- grammar
Articles and nouns: gender and number
What is a noun?
Nouns are words that name a person, place or thing.
What are articles?
In English, all nouns use the same definite article: the.
In English, all nouns use the same indefinite article: a/an.
What is grammatical gender?
In English, we don’t really think about nouns that aren’t people as having a
specific ‘gender’. For example, a table is a just a table. It’s not feminine or
masculine.
In Spanish, however, a table is a ‘feminine noun’. This doesn’t mean that the
table has characteristics that make it more ‘feminine’; it simply has that
grammatical gender.
Grammatical gender is not associated with sexual attributes or biological gender.
For example, a ‘dress’ might be something we might associate with females and
femininity. In Spanish, however, the grammatical gender of the word for dress
(‘vestido’) is masculine.
In Spanish, there are different words for ‘the’ (definite article) and ‘a/an’,
(indefinite article), depending on the grammatical gender of the noun in question.
Singular nouns:
masculine (M)
feminine (F)
Definite article: the
el
la
Indefinite article: a/an
un
una
For example:
el vestido (the dress)
un vestido (a dress)
la mesa (the table)
una mesa
(a table)
How can I tell the grammatical gender of nouns?
Although there are exceptions, there are generally a few rules to live by:
1. Most words that end in ‘o’ are masculine.
For example: el cuaderno
un cuaderno
el libro
un libro
el diccionario
un diccionario
2. Most words that end in ‘a’ are feminine.
For example: la muchacha
una muchacha
la silla
una silla
la ventana
una ventana
3. NOTE: Some words that end in –a or –ma are masculine.
For example:
el día
un día
el mapa
un mapa
el problema
un problema
el programa
un programa
4. Most words that end in the following letters are feminine: -d, -ción, -sión
For example:
la universidad
una universidad
la lección
una lección
la television
una television
5. In general, nouns that refer to males are masculine; nouns that refer to
females are feminine.
*Sometimes it is easy to change the masculine form to feminine by making the
last letter of the noun into an ‘a’.
For example:
el amigo/un amigo
la amiga/una amiga
el profesor/un profesor
la profesora/una profesora
*Nouns that end in ‘e’ generally share the same form; however the article still
indicates the gender of the noun.
For example:
el estudiante/un estudiante
la estudiante/la estudiante
Plural nouns
In English, the word ‘the’ does not change if we are talking about one noun
(singular) or more than one noun (plural). If we were using an indefinite article in
English, the word ‘a/an’ changes to ‘some’ in the plural.
For example:
The boy is playing soccer.
The boys are playing soccer.
A boy is playing soccer.
Some boys are playing soccer.
In Spanish, both the definite and indefinite articles change in the plural, again
depending on the grammatical gender of the word.
Plural nouns:
masculine (M)
feminine (F)
Definite article: the
los
las
Indefinite article: some
unos
unas
For example:
los vestidos (the dresses)
unos vestido
(some dresses)
las mesas (the tables)
unas mesas
(some tables)
How to make words plural in Spanish
1. Add –s to nouns that end in a vowel
For example:
el amigo
los amigos
la amiga
las amigas
2. Add –es to nouns that end in consonants.
For example:
el señor
los señores
la actividad
las actividades
3. For nouns that end in –z, change the ‘z’ to a ‘c’ and add ‘es’
For example:
la nariz
las narices
el lápiz
los lápices
4. To refer to a mixed group of people, default to the masculine plural form.
For example:
los chicos
(the boys and girls)
los padres
(the parents)