All rights reserved. The endings are not so obvious. El nino y el gato. My cousins design is not finished. 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. Therefore, "red" is "rojo" but it becomes "roja" with a. We use the masculine definite article (el) in singular with feminine nouns that start with an A when the stress is put on the first syllable. 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. El DIA = THE DAY Uruguay is very pretty. Part of Paglia's understanding of men's and women's sexual "personae" is shaped by Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian polarity: The former represents the masculine impulse for stoic order and rationality, while the latter represents the feminine drive toward ecstatic, bodily revelry and the chaotic, unpredictable forces of the natural world. There are some rules to determine if a noun is masculine of feminine. Quiero un rojo ms intenso. el gato male cat Spanish gender is a complex topic. The judge is always on time. In the following sections, well explore some of Spanishs most important rules for feminine and masculine nouns. Then little by little you will learn the others. But then you find out that its la foto, not el foto. Nouns ending in -o, an accented vowel, -or, or -aje are usually masculine. There are also adjectives where the singular masculine form ends in -e or a consonant, and it keeps the same form in the feminine singular ( verde, azul, gris, marrn) and both gender . Search millions of Spanish-English example sentences from our dictionary, TV shows, and the internet. Este semestre est bien pesado. Sofa es muy inteligente. Adjectives that end with an -e or a consonant cannot be modified to express the Spanish grammatical gender. List of colors in Spanish 1. And to make things more interesting, the fact is that with time, languages evolve and change. The name is thought to have acquired this meaning as communities in the time of Sarah and Abraham thought it to be hysterical that they were to have a child at such an elderly age. If you want to learn more Spanish, subscribe to my newsletter for free! There is one other ending that ends in -a, -ista, that is actually both feminine and masculine. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. Is vacation feminine or masculine in Spanish? This free website is created with love and a great deal of work. The letters of the alphabet are feminine: la a, la be, la ce, la de, etc. "Masculine and Feminine in Spanish (el & la): The Rules & Their Many Exceptions." Luis dog is white. LONERS - words that end with any of the letters in LONERS are usually masculine. La verdad puede ser dolorosa. This site also participates in other affiliate programs, including CJ and other sites, and is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies, but in no way increases the cost to you if you opt to make a purchase from my links. The general rule is that Spanish nouns that end in -a are feminine. For instance, a cat can be el gato (masculine) or la . Do you see those words ending with -ma? Nouns that end in -ma are masculine, such as the word problema (problem), Nouns that end in -pa, like the word mapa (map), are also masculine. They wish that they were in love now. Before a stressed A vowel sound, use EL instead of LA even if the noun is feminine. In plain English, this book explains the Masculine & Feminine elements of Spanish, plus the rules around Singular & Plural. Dont be shy and post a message! My mom has a cherry tree. Learn and practice Spanish * Daily practice * Find your level (proficiency test) * Spanish for beginners * Travel Spanish, A1 | A2 | B1 | B2 | C1 Find your level. vacacion is more commonly used in plural than in singular. Nouns that refer to people and animals have two forms. To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. Equal Opportunity Employment Program The Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre hires on the basis of merit and is strongly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion within its community. In the tables below, youll find the most common endings for feminine words in Spanish. SpanishDict is the world's most popular Spanish-English dictionary, translation, and learning website. Can vacaciones be singular? Lesson outline 1. There are a few exceptions to this rule (for example, la mano and el mapa ). Some animals, particularly those you dont come in contact with every day, tend to have one accepted Spanish grammatical gender. Names of rivers, lakes, and oceans are usually masculine; names of mountains are usually feminine. La casa blanca es muy bonita.The white house is very pretty. To put it in simple terms, if youre working with a Spanish masculine noun, you must make sure its modifiers are also masculine. La mesera descansa los jueves. In Spanish, the following nouns are always masculine: (Determiner] +[noun] + [verb conjugated] + [complement]. The mechanic works every day. The grammatical gender is an arbitrary classification that divides nouns into two types: masculines or feminines. While some of these exceptions just have to be memorized, you can scroll up and see that a lot of exceptions have their own rules in the-ta, -ma and-pasection. And because it is an occupation, we said that those that end in -a, tend to stay the same. Sometimes the word is the same and we can only figure out the meaning with the articles or pronouns that go with them: El capital (money) La capital (capital city), El editorial (editorial) La editorial (publisher), El pendiente (earring) La pendiente (slope). La familia se fue de vacaciones a Mjico. Learn all about the Spanish gender roles below - Feminine (la) vs Masculine (el). Let's look at the word persona (person) to help explain this idea. Ese color es bonito. Collins Complete Spanish Electronic Dictionary HarperCollins Publishers 2011. El Amazonas es el ro ms largo del mundo. These are some of the nouns whose endings cannot change. Control of polling in presence of vacations in heavy traffic with applications to satellite and mobile radio systems. Origin adjectives express where people or things come from. (Administration) vacancy vacances plural feminine noun holidays pluriel (Brit) holiday (Brit) vacation (USA) les grandes vacances the summer holidays (Brit) the summer vacation (USA) prendre des vacances to take a holiday (Brit) to take a vacation (USA) prendre ses vacances to take one's holidays (Brit) to take one's vacation (USA) And because it is an occupation, we said that those . There are some nouns that end in a, but they are not feminine, but masculine: And vice versa, some nouns that end in -o are feminine: When a masculine noun ends in a consonant, its feminine form ends in a (We just have to had an a after that last consonant). I like the red bag more. Este silln es muy cmodo. Thats why agua, a feminine noun, in singular is el agua. Miami Beach, FL 33139, All Rights Reserved, 2017-2023. Why? Nouns that end with -ma, -pa, -ta, or any of the letters in the word LONERS are usually masculine. Animals With A Regular Masculine And Feminine Form. This name is also derived from the Hebrew name Yitzhak which means ' one who rejoices.'. This discussion is especially alive with occupations. So, well cover those exceptions below, too. Pink is my favorite color. SpanishDict is the world's most popular Spanish-English dictionary, translation, and learning website. NEWMAGICFOR THE NEWAGE Daring to challenge old stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding magical practice, New Millenni. Tengo una pluma extra. Example 1: We said all words ending in -a are feminine. Sometimes, all we need is a quick and simple explanation to remove the obstacles, bringing the goal of being fluent in Spanish within grasping distance. That singer is very talented. This means that most Spanish adjectives will change their gender to match the noun. If you dont have one, sign up its free! Two examples are doctora (female doctor) and camisa (shirt). up when learning new vocab because they had learned this rule of thumb. La torre - the tower. Unfortunately, there are not as many rules to know whether a noun in Spanish is masculine. #RAEconsultas Although vacaciones is the majority use, the singular vacacin is also correct: la vacacin veraniega (P. Lan Entralgo). Como La Flor, by Selena. La periodista es muy insistente. The same goes for nouns ending with -or: el amor, el dolor, el error, el sabor, etc. For living things (such as people and animals), the grammatical gender is associated with the biological gender: El perro de Luis es blanco. Lingua Linkup. document.write(d); With these types of nouns, you still have to mark the gender. el clima (the weather) Forms of feminine and masculine nouns. We know that all people have gender, but in Spanish all nouns have gender. Descubr lo que tu empresa podra llegar a alcanzar. If you have studied Spanish, you are painfully aware of this. La serpiente - the serpent. In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. However, the word persona is always a feminine word. For that reason, in this guide, Ill provide you with all the key information you need to know to determine the gender of nouns in Spanish. 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), Your email address will not be published. This attribute allows us to classify words as either masculine or feminine. trabajador m (plural trabajadores, feminine trabajadora, feminine plural trabajadoras) worker Synonyms: currante, obrero, trabajante; Derived terms The Ultimate Tip-Sheet to Articles in Spanish: El vs La, Un vs Una [2022], Puzzle Solved: Why nouns in Spanish are feminine and masculine [2022]. In those cases, if we want to specify the sex, we need to add macho (male) or hembra (female): Finally, a word can change its meaning according to its ending. This is a little more complicated but my recommendation is to learn the more common words in a first moment. Very often our students at Fluenz get genders mixed tony bloom starlizard. Nuestros perros son pequeos. It is usually at the end of words that describe people, like artista (artist) and realista (realist). The use of the masculine gender includes the feminine and is used only to facilitate the reading. And it gets easier with time and practice. In these cases, we use. If you look at texts 30 years ago you would never find LA arquitectA, it would have been LA arquitectO. Retrieved from https://lingualinkup.com/el-la-spanish/. Spanish Nouns That Can Be Both Masculine And Feminine While most nouns refer to objects and concepts that don't have gender, there are also the nouns that do. You will need to memorize rule-breaking words like la mano (hand) and el d'ia (day). For example, to say, 'My brother is an interesting person' in Spanish, you would say Mi hermano es una persona interesante. *People, animals and occupations have their own set of rules. Mi padres pasaron las vacaciones de Semana Santa en Argentina. Even if the nouns are in singular! Most Spanish nouns ending in -o are masculine, and most ending in -a are feminine, but there are exceptions. You cant apply it to plural nouns or that would mean that every word would be masculine. And if theres another word between the definite article (el/la) and the noun, we use the feminine article: La extensa rea / La imponente aula / La hermosa guila. Here, well go through some of the most common giveaways that a word is masculine or feminine, as well as the cases when Spanish grammatical gender can switch for a single word. For instance, a table (la mesa) is feminine, while a desk (el escritorio) is masculine. coming up later. If the occupation ends in -a it tends not to change. 250 words that are the same in English and Spanish, Spanish words that are similar to English words, its not really incorrect to use the feminine form. Be careful since you may fall into a trap of gender thinking. As established before, when it comes to people, you can usually form the Spanish gender by changing the -o for an -a. Soccer is very boring. Test yourself on the gender of Spanish nouns: Note: You must be logged into your Progress with Lawless Spanish account to take these tests. When working as adjectives, numbers have to agree in gender and number with the noun they are modifying. A few of the most common ones are: Any words that are actually a shorter form of a longer word. The balcony is very big. Several Spanish nouns have a masculine and a feminine form, for example, hijo - son and hija - daughter.Another example is mdico - male doctor and mdica - female doctor.. All of these rules use the ending of a word as a trick to determine its gender. We do this in order to avoid a cacophony, a mixture of unpleasant sounds to our ears. His shoes are very expensive. As established before, a Spanish noun can be classified as masculine or feminine depending on its gender. In Spanish, the masculine form of these animals almost always takes precedence. The same goes for some words that end in -o that are actually feminine: la mano, la radio, la foto, etc. Within the Fluenz team, amongst us who Spanish is our first language we still have numerous discussions onwhether certain words are masculine or feminine. Uncle and aunt, for example, are el to andla ta. Many nouns that refer to jobs or roles of people can be either masculine or feminine depending on the person they refer to. Which is why it uses the article las which correctly matches the nouns gender. It's time to Get to Grips with Spanish. Qu bonito est tu labial! As mentioned above, this rule comes into effect with amounts superior to two hundred. Las aguas azucaradas son malas para la salud. Janet Long has taught post-secondary Spanish and English for over 15 years. I am going to travel to Mexico during summer vacation. Feminine forms. For these types of cases, there are certain guidelines that can give you a better idea of how Spanish gender is formed. 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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). In Spanish, the word "tea" is used for a wide variety of beverages from coffee to cold brew to water to iced tea to tea bags and more. For example: Subscribe for free weekly updates from this Spanish Language site. b. holiday (United Kingdom) Ests muy estresado; necesitas irte de vacaciones.You are too stressed out; you should go on holiday. Helpful, right? Take Note: The gender of a noun in Spanish affects determiners, adjectives, and some pronouns. Most Spanish masculine nouns end in "o". El frica El Agua- Las Agua (plural) the waters More often than not, the endings change according to the gender of the person or animal: Sometimes only the article changes. A lot of them are identical or almost identical to words you already know in English! 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. So, if you put a . Another example of this is la radio, which is a shorter form of the word radiodifusin. La luz es bastante brillante. Well break it down into three basic groups. Grammatical gender is a property of Spanish nouns. Te lo has pasado bien en las vacaciones? -Fue un lunes, -Ha sido un septiembre hmedo -Nac en el 84 -Son las cinco y cuarto -Poner los puntos sobre las es -La hache delante de la 'a' es muda Me encanta el salmn ahumado. You will find them in the list below. Estas manzanas estn muy agrias. To keep the sentence consistent, adjectives, articles, and pronouns must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. Ests muy estresado; necesitas irte de vacaciones. Masculine and Feminine in Spanish (el & Masculine and Feminine in Spanish (el & la): The Rules & Their Many Exceptions, how to tell if a word is masculine or feminine in spanish, what is the difference between masculine and feminine in spanish, 35 Vegetables Translated to Spanish | The Ultimate Master List, Demonstrative Adjectives: This, That, These, and Those Get Them Right. Required fields are marked *. This t-shirt is black. Making educational experiences better for everyone. All nouns in Spanish have a gender, and are either feminine or masculine. Have you tried it yet? Key Takeaways: Spanish Noun Gender Nouns ending in -a, -cin, -a, or -dad are usually feminine. Fluenz Fluenz Blog Learn Spanish Basic Spanish El or La? Spanish speakers always like to have vacations in plural. I can help you with that! Spanish gender can be a challenging topic for many new and advanced learners. This restaurant is pretty famous. In many cases, the worst that can happen to you is that your Spanish will not sound very good: La problema es que no tengo tiempo. Words ending simply in -inare often masculine, as in: el camin, el avin, etc., so bear that in mind! Thomas grew up in suburban Massachusetts, and moved to New York City for college. These nouns are: Mi caballo es negro y mi yegua parda. The journalist is very persistent. Talking about people, especially family members, often includes referring to gender. In Spanish if there is a group of people, both males and females, you use the masculine to address them all, so masculine will work in most cases. The opposite time of day, la noche (night), is feminine, so you can think of them as a pair. La juez es muy puntual. Grammatical gender is a property of Spanish nouns. This rule is only applicable to the following numbers: Tengo doscientos pesos. Generally, if the masculine form ends with an -o, to form the feminine you just need to replace it with an -a: If the masculine form ends witn a consonant, to form the feminine we just add an -a: They usually have the same form for masculine and feminine: el/la estudiante, el/la cantante, el/la agente, el/la paciente, etc. Copyright Curiosity Media, Inc., a division of IXL Learning. Sometimes you cant tell if a word is masculine or feminine in Spanish only by its form. The following words are feminine when plural, but when they are singular, these words are masculine: Another exception is that the el or la can change the context of the word: Online Spanish Tutors - Native Speakers. 4. las vacaciones de Navidad, las vacaciones de Pascua, las vacaciones de verano. The picture identification task consisted of a booklet (which subjects read), containing a story about two characters preparing to go on, For example, the domain order for choosing the destination of a. Names of rivers, oceans, and seas are always masculine: el Ro de la Plata, el Amazonas, el Misisipi, el Atlntico, el Pacfico, el Mediterrneo, etc. However, in certain situations, changing the gender of a noun can also change its meaning, as you can see in the graphic and examples below: Mi mam tiene un cerezo. A student learns how to identify gender in Spanish. When you are starting out in Spanish knowing the gender of nouns is very difficult. Be one of them! El periodista trabaja todo el da. As you may already know, most masculine words in Spanish end with -o. Composition 2 - 1020 Tema: Vacation plans Imagine you are planning your next vacation with your best friend to a Spanish speaking country or a specific city (assigned by your instructor). Your voice is so high-pitched. Sofia is very smart. Learn all about the Spanish gender roles below Feminine (la) vs Masculine (el). For English speakers, it is hard to determine when a noun is feminine or masculine simply because nouns in English have no gender. If you happen to have an excellent grasp on etymology, youll have a leg up! el day is masculine and is the ONLY exception. (in summer) a. veranear Copyright 2006 Harrap Publishers Limited vacation noun 1 especially (Britain) (Jur) receso (m) vacacional (formal); periodo (m) vacacional Nouns ending in -cin, -sin, -dad, -tad and -tud are feminine: la cancin, relacin, la televisin, la expresin, la ciudad, la verdad, la libertad, la amistad, la solicitud, la juventud, etc. -A, -in, -dad, -tad and -tud are all endings for feminine words. Time to dive into a topic that combines grammar and etiquette. Create an account to start this course today. Most words that end in the letter -o are masculine. Therefore, its correct to say: Tengo cien pesos. La comida estuvo muy rica. Many people learning Spanish assume that these are neutral nouns. So with people you may not know well, perhaps someone older, or people of authority/higher status than oneself such as a college professor. nine fem--nn 1 : of the female sex 2 : characteristic of or belonging to women : womanly 3 : of, relating to, or making up the class of words that ordinarily includes most of those referring to females a feminine noun in Latin femininely adverb feminineness noun femininity fem--nin-t- noun feminine 2 of 2 noun 1 Watch out! endings to determine the gender of a word in Spanish. by Classroom52. Lingua Linkup, May. Cardinal directions are masculine, too: el norte, el sur, el este, el oeste. La botella de Suzy est vaca. That being said, there are, of course, exceptions to this rule. No me di cuenta, ya lo correg , Your email address will not be published. My kitty is sick. El mecnico trabaja todos los das. El patn elctrico es muy prctico. Access millions of accurate translations written by our team of experienced English-Spanish translators. While most nouns refer to objects and concepts that dont have gender, there are also the nouns that do. Both are masculine in Spanish, but when translated to French they become feminine even though the words are almost exactly the same: la couleur, la dent. Nouns in Spanish can be either feminine or masculine, and this distinction can often seem illogical to people who don't speak Spanish. Este restaurante es muy famoso. Also see my lesson on the stressed A, which causes feminine nouns to take the masculine article. Les gusta irse de vacaciones a las Bahamas. If you were referring to a male friend, which article would you use EL or LA? Some examples are hijo (son), zapato (shoe) and mono (monkey). is vacation in spanish masculine or feminine. *Note: la moto and la foto are a shortened version of the feminine words motocicleta and fotografa. Many students assume that confusing the gender of words in Spanish is not a big deal. La disco is short for la discoteca, andla foto is short forla fotografa. Here we will explain the rules, and then the 3 categories of exceptions: Below are a number of words you would think should be la according to the rules above, but they are el, as they are exceptions to the el/la rules. The Masculine and feminine 1 Whack-a-mole. . The name Isaac means 'he will laugh.'. As explained before, a big portion of masculine words in Spanish end with an -o. Common exceptions: not feminine, masculine El mapa- the map- masculine El da- the day- masculine. Please check your email and click the link to confirm your subscription - gracias! In some cases, you will be able to tell the gender of a word based on the ending of the word itself. Mis perros son muy tranquilos. trabajador (feminine trabajadora, masculine plural trabajadores, feminine plural trabajadoras) hard-working Synonyms: currante, trabajante; Noun . It's a good place to start for beginners though! Here are the exceptions to this rule. All rights reserved. I desperately need a vacation!