With these rules below, youll know which to use with every word el or la. Very often our students at Fluenz get genders mixed document.write(d); Su habitacin es morada. Dolphins are adorable. Los dentistas estn muy jvenes. Tu casa es grande y bonita. The food was delicious. Objectos de clase (masculine - feminine ) Group sort. If you want to learn more Spanish, subscribe to my newsletter for free! Singapur es muy caro. Common exceptions: not feminine, masculine El mapa- the map- masculine El da- the day- masculine. Ests muy estresado; necesitas irte de vacaciones. My cousin is also smart. The man sneezed.). However, with some specific nouns (especially when we talk about professions) we do replace the -e with an -a, and both forms are correct: El presidente -> La presidente / La presidenta. The Spanish letters "a" and "o" as the final letter of a word designate a feminine or masculine word; "a" is feminine and "o" is masculine. As a result, here are some frequently asked questions that most of my students usually have. These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. This attribute allows us to classify words as either masculine or feminine. You know that people and animals are masculine or feminine, but did you know that nouns in Spanish have gender? La familia se fue de vacaciones a Mjico. L'immigration est + masculine que fminine : INFO ou INFOX ? Im always glad to reach and help more people around the world. For instance, when the word for a person or occupation ends in -e. When occupations end in -a it gets messy. A noun is a word referring to a person, animal, place, thing, feeling or idea (e.g. Me gusta el vestido rosa. is vacation in spanish masculine or feminine. LinguaLinkup.com 2023. Even though these endings can generally help you with the gender of a noun, there are some words that do not follow these rules. Think youve got it? (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) Comment *document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "afd5b14b53088abe26398d903d076933" );document.getElementById("a465f5e1c1").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Even if the nouns are in singular! . Words like el reloj (watch) have a gender, but it is not always easy to predict. While most nouns refer to objects and concepts that dont have gender, there are also the nouns that do. I have one hundred pesos. las vacaciones de Navidad, las vacaciones de Pascua, las vacaciones de verano. noun uk / veke.n/ us / veke.n/ A1 [ C or U ] US (UK holiday) a time when someone does not go to work or school but is free to do what they want, such as travel or relax vacaciones We're taking a vacation in June. Watch out! The Verb To Need: Sometimes you Really Need it. So, well cover those exceptions below, too. Dont worry! Although words that end in -a are usually feminine, we already know that the words with -ma at the end of them are masculine. The idea that nouns have gender seems perfectly natural when the noun stands for a living creature. 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. either to a group of male persons or a . Nouns ending with -a are usually feminine: la mesa, la cama, la casa, la palabra, etc. We would say El mdicO, La mdicO. If a word ends with these three letters, you can be almost certain its a feminine noun. While some exceptions (like la mano) are just exceptions, many words that seemingly end in -o are actually shortenings of other words. 2023 Lawless Spanish. Sofa es muy inteligente. But really, the LONERS rule will work for you almost every time. We covered o above because it really requires its own section, but this is a good general rule of thumb. Two other endings for feminine nouns are -dad / -tad, like in felicidad (happiness) and amistad (friendship). Before a stressed A vowel sound, use EL instead of LA even if the noun is feminine. . As you can see, below that chart, youll then see the el & la exceptions for Spanish words. Because the gender of the noun changes the article or adjective that you can use with the noun. Las aguas azucaradas son malas para la salud. Have you tried it yet? In Spanish, the following nouns are always masculine: (Determiner] +[noun] + [verb conjugated] + [complement]. (general) a. pasar las vacaciones (United States) 3. One of the biggest exceptions to the LONERS rule we talked about for masculine nouns above is-in. The judge is always on time. (f) means that a noun is feminine. Masculine forms. The general rule states that all Spanish nouns are masculine or feminine. Even though the brother is a man, the word persona is always feminine. The problem is that I dont have time. (Translation of vacation from the Cambridge English-Spanish Dictionary Cambridge University Press), (Translation of vacation from the GLOBAL English-Spanish Dictionary 2020 K Dictionaries Ltd), Watch your back! In Italian (including all Italian dialects) and Portuguese, the sea is strictly masculine: il mare (Sicilian: u mari, Venetian: el mar, Neapolitan: 'o mare, Sardinian: su mari, Corsican: u mare) and o mar (the same for Galician); however in French and Romanian it is feminine: la mer and la mare. Te lo has pasado bien en las vacaciones? It's the person's gender that will determine whether we use el or la. It is basically just a sign of respect. Little by little, and loads of practice is the best remedy. The mechanic works every day. Grammatical gender is a property of Spanish nouns. In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. Me encanta el salmn ahumado. In Spanish, all nouns have a gender. For instance, a table (la mesa) is feminine, while a desk (el escritorio) is masculine. Because of this, most people assume that vestido is feminine, only to find out that theyre wrong. The following Spanish nouns all denote living creatures. Suzys bottle is empty. Therefore, its correct to say: Tengo cien pesos. In Spanish, some nouns use different words for the masculine and feminine forms. So, you would have to establish if that friend is a male or a female to determine which article to use. There are one hundred chairs available. The pink t-shirt is too big. La disco is short for la discoteca, andla foto is short forla fotografa. In plain English, this book explains the Masculine & Feminine elements of Spanish, plus the rules around Singular & Plural. The words doctorA, arquitectA, are relatively new, this is why we cant craft a perfect rule. If you dont have one, sign up its free! Benoit Hamon, CEO de SINGA, est venu sur Komune pour donner des faits face aux ides Here are the exceptions to this rule. Shopping! For those who are serious about their Spanish, there is nothing like the entire Fluenz journey including our digital App, the face-to-face Online Immersion, and the six-day experiences in Mexico City, Barcelona, or Oaxaca. But if you paid close attention to those words, you may have noticed that none of them had the suffix -in: El balcn es muy grande. 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. by Classroom52. Example 1: We said all words ending in -a are feminine. Because of this, he has really hard opinions about AP Style. If you are starting to learn Spanish, we only introduce the concept of gender differences a couple of sessions in. La mochila roja me gusta ms. El vestidor est ocupado. For these types of cases, there are certain guidelines that can give you a better idea of how Spanish gender is formed. Feminine: (a, cin, dad) La chica- the girl. 501 lessons. by Kcastonguay. vacation translate: vacances [feminine, plural], vacances [feminine, plural], passer ses vacances, vacances, passer des. Hubo mil quinientos invitados.There were one thousand five hundred guests. 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). vacacion is more commonly used in plural than in singular. Cardinal directions are masculine, too: el norte, el sur, el este, el oeste. These adjectives are derived from the name of that place. As established before, when it comes to people, you can usually form the Spanish gender by changing the -o for an -a. Your neighbor is very noisy. Or el agua in singular, while las aguas in plural. Whether its a good idea to split the world into two genders is a subject for a different article, but for now well go through the various kinds of nouns that switch genders. But, as youll see in the examples below, some popular words are the exception to this rule. Masculine nouns are used with articles like el or un and have adjectives that end in -o, while female nouns use the articles la or una and have adjectives that end in -a. Los nios juegan en el parque. 2. This rule is only applicable to the following numbers: Tengo doscientos pesos. Men wish that they had been warriors, or are proud that they once were. Subscribe to the Lawless Spanish newsletter, New lessons and features in your inbox every Thursday. 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. (Check out this link to learn how to use articles in Spanish). What does the root Manus mean? Dijiste que the letters of the alphabet are masculine, pero son feminine, Muchas gracias, Ann! Two examples are doctora (female doctor) and camisa (shirt). For example, to say, 'My brother is an interesting person' in Spanish, you would say Mi hermano es una persona interesante. Reading comprehension. Those singers are Spanish. Why? Plural of Masculine Nouns [edit | edit source]. Descubr lo que tu empresa podra llegar a alcanzar. On the other hand, when working as nouns, Spanish colors are always masculine. Yet if you are referring to a person or occupation this is what happens: EL espa = The spy (if the spy is a man) LA espa = The spy (if the spy is a woman. Since it can be challenging to conjugate, well Probar Conjugation 101: Conjugate Probar in Spanish. There are three genders in Spanish: masculine, feminine, and neutral. He made the wrong decision. Our car is dirty. La mesera descansa los jueves. NOTE: The masculine gender has been used for brevity and includes the feminine gender. As you can see, most of them are nouns used to describe a persons profession or occupation: And here are some examples of what you can do to mark the gender of these words: [Masculine or feminine determiner] + [noun]+ (adjective). Therefore, "red" is "rojo" but it becomes "roja" with a. El frica El Agua- Las Agua (plural) the waters I am going to travel to Mexico during summer vacation. In English, you use a form of the verb 'to be' (am, is, are, was, were, etc.) There are some words that end with -o, -ma, -pa, -ta, or LONERS that are feminine. As a result, depending on the noun, a number can be either feminine or masculine. All rights reserved. Collins Complete Spanish Electronic Dictionary HarperCollins Publishers 2011. Names of rivers, lakes, and oceans are usually masculine; names of mountains are usually feminine. Lessons for Adults & Kids. La periodista es muy insistente. La mano- the hand- feminine. Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. Required fields are marked *. Forms of feminine and masculine nouns. 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. https://lingualinkup.com/el-la-spanish/ (accessed var d = (new Date()).toString().split(' ').splice(1,3).join(' '); Tengo una pluma extra. * This is the only word ending in -ua that takes a masculine article. 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. In fact, a few masculine words also end with this vowel. Below youll find a list of words and be able to find out for yourself if it is masculine (el) or feminine (la). Unlike the masculine, theres no fun acronym for feminine nouns. All the Spanish nouns ending in cin, -sin, -tad, -tud, -dad or umbre are feminine: There are some Spanish nouns that have the same form for both masculine and feminine. As youll see in a moment, most words that end in -a are feminine, but there are exceptions. Besides the masculine and feminine genders, some nouns are called: de gnero comn, epiceno, and ambiguo. Next year I am going to vacation in Europe. Sometimes the word just breaks the rules, and we have to memorize that they are different, such as la mano (hand). I desperately need a vacation! 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. Nuestros perros son pequeos. We said all words ending in -a are feminine. I hope you find what youre looking for here during your journey into Espaol . Just like with nouns, Spanish masculine adjectives usually end in the vowel -O like "Bonito" and "Creativo", e.g. This is why despite how difficult it is to learn Spanish, we are confident there is a realistic and achievable path to fluency. For instance, a cat can be el gato (masculine) or la . Venir is an irregular verb in Spanish. Languages are masculine: el espaol, el ingls, el portugus, el mandarn, el ruso, etc. 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. Therefore, vestido (dress) is actually a masculine noun. 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. This is because in English, living creatures often have different names, depending upon whether they are male or female. Other nouns that are always feminine are those words that end with -ad or -ed. * These words are shortened from words that do end in A: discoteca, fotografa, motocicleta, pornografa, and radiodifusin. Many students assume that confusing the gender of words in Spanish is not a big deal. Recuerdas aquella vez que estuvimos de vacaciones en Vermont? If you have the word for friend, it refers to a person correct? As we mention in the masculine section, many words that end in-e are masculine. The L cuts that unpleasant sound: el agua. The waitress doesnt work on Thursday. Feminine and masculine nouns ending in -E. Nouns ending in -e can be masculine and feminine. 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So, its important to memorize the feminine words that end with the consonant z.

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