Nouns and gender in Spanish (2)

Last lesson the gender concept was introduced and you learned about the definite and indefinite articles which can be summarized as 

You learned that every noun in Spanish is either feminine or masculine. That’s why, while learning a new noun, one has to to learn it with its article.

Most of the time, you need to memorize the article unfortunately. On the other hand, for some cases there are some rules. In this lesson, we review these rules and learn how some jobs and professions are called in Spanish. 

The –o/-a rule

In the previous lesson, we learned also that the majority of the Spanish words which end in “–o” is masculine and the majority of the words which end in “–a” is feminine. We saw this point in action by learning the family members’ vocabulary. Let us extend this issue in this lesson by discussing the names of occupations in Spanish.

Vocabulary

The names of occupations change according to the gender.  

For example, while a male architect is called “arquitecto”, a female architect is called “arquitecta”.

In fact, many occupation names end in “–o” and “–a” for males and females respectively.

The –ista and –ante rule

The words ending in –ista and –ante can be either gender. For example;

• turista is used for males as well as females, (el) turista for a male and (la) turista for a female
• estudiante can be either a male student or a female student. (el) estudiante : male student.  (la) estudiante: female student. 

Vocabulary

Names of professions that  end in –ista or –ante.

Masculine nouns ending in –or

If a masculine noun referring to a person ends in –or, it ends in –ora for the feminine equivalent.

For example (el) señor is used to address a man and (la) señora is used to address a woman. 

Vocabulary

Names of professions which end in –or in the masculine.

! Exception: (el) actor but (la) actriz.

Up to now in this lesson we dealt with nouns referring to a person.

But, as you know every Spanish noun has an article. The general rules valid for nouns that do not refer to people are summarized below.  

The –o/-a  rule

First of all, the –o/a rule which was mentioned above is not only valid for the nouns referring to  people but also for the nouns referring to other things.

For example, (el) libro, (el) juego, (el) mundo, (el) monument, (la) mesa, (la) fiesta, (la) casa, (la) silla.

As always, there are exceptions. For example (la) mano, (la) moto, (la) radio, (la) foto.

In some cases, the ending of the noun may help you guess the correct gender.

Nouns ending in –ema

If the noun ends in "-ema"  its article is generally "el”.

Examples: (el) tema, (el) problema, (el) sistema

Nouns that end in sión, -ción, -dad, -tad, –tud , -gion, -umbre

These nouns are feminine.

Examples: (la) televisión, (la) tradición, (la) universidad, (la) fakultad, (la) juventud , (la) cantidad, (la) religion, (la) legumbre, (la) costumbre.

Numbers are masculine

(el) dos (two), (el) tres (three) …

Weekdays and months are masculine

el lunes, el martes, el miércoles, el jueves, el viernes, el sábado, el domingo

el enero, el febrero, el marzo, el abril, el may, el junio, el julio, el agosto, el septiembre, el octubre, el noviembre, el diciembre

Languages are masculine

 (el) inglés, (el) italiano, (el) griego, (el) español …

Letters are feminine

(la) A, (la) B, (la) C ...

Other important points related to Spanish articles

• There are some nouns in Spanish which begin with a stressed “a” or “ha”. As you know from an earlier lesson on pronunciation rules, h is not pronounced in Spanish, hence whether a word starts with a stressed “a” or “ha” turns out to be the same thing.

These kinds of words are actually feminine. However, in singular, they are used with the definite article “el”, not with “la”.

The most well-known example of such words is agua, which means water. If agua is to be used in its plural form, it is correct to use the feminine definite article, so “las” aqua is correct.

Other examples: el hada, el hambre but las hadas, las hambres

• There are some nouns which can be both feminine and masculine and whose meanings change according to the article they are used with.

Examples:

(el) corte: cut - (la) corte: court

(el) parte :document - (la) parte: portion

(el) guía: male guide – (la) guía: guidebook, also female guide

Exercises

1.      EL or LA?

(..) taxista

(..) agua

(..) radio

(..) pescadora

(..) fakultad

(..) television

(..) parte

2.      Write down the feminine equivalent of the following occupations

(el) Pintor …

(el) Director ….

(el) Actor ….

(el) Abogado …

(el) Artista …

(el) Doctor …

(el) Escritor …

3.      Review the gender rules. Masculine or feminine?

The nouns ending in –o are generally ….

The nouns ending in –a are generally ….

The nouns ending in –dad are generally ….

The nouns ending in –or are generally ….

The nouns ending in sión, -ción are generally ….