GÉNERO Y NÚMEROGender and Number

El Género y el Número

All nouns (words describing persons, places or things) in Spanish are either masculine or feminine. The gender of a noun affects both the article (el, la, los, las) as well as any adjectives used “la tiza blanca” “el cuaderno negro”

Most nouns that end in “o” are masculine, in “a” feminine. There are a few big exceptions to this: (la mano, el día, el mapa)

Nouns that describe males are masculine, females are feminine. This includes both humans and animals (el gato = male cat , la gata = female cat)

Many masculine nouns which end in o have a feminine equivalent ending in “a” (el chico/ la chica, el niño/la niña, el muchacho/la muchacha)

Masculine nouns which end in a consonant such as “or” or “ón” add an a in the female form burlón/burlona, doctor/doctora

Words that end in -ante , -ente or -ista can be either masculine or feminine depending on the gender of the person, however the endings do not change: el presidente, la presidente, el feminista, la feminista, el estudiante, la estudiante

It´s important to learn the gender of words with unclear consonant endings: El rejoj, La pared, La luz, el lápiz….

El número

We make a word plural in Spanish by adding an -s to a word which ends in a vowel and an -es to a word which ends in a consonant: señora/señoras, reloj/relojes

  When a noun ends in “z” change the z to a

“c” when you make it plural. La luz, las luces. El lápiz, los lapices.

In Spanish the vowel/consonant combination “ze” or “zi” does not exist.

When a masculine and feminine noun are joined together the plural becomes masculine automatically (like French) “la muchacha y el muchacho” = “los muchachos”

Definite and Indefinite Articles

Spanish has four ways of saying “the” depending on the gender and number of the noun used.

El La (singular) Los Las (plural)

El cuaderno Los cuadernos La silla Las sillas

The gender and number of the noun tells you which article to use. It’s good to learn them both together. Spanish actually considers the article as part of the word, not as a separate word.

Book El libro Female cat La gata

Indefinite Articles

Indirect Articles are the equivalent to “a” “an” “one” and “some” In Spanish they are as follows

(singular) Un Una (plural) Unos Unas

Un libro Unos librosUna silla Unas sillas

Hay…

Hay is often used with the indirect article in Spanish means both “there is” and “there are”.

Hay un libro en tu mochila? Sí, hay un libro y una pluma.