CIU: Gramática Lesson - Nouns with Irregular Genders

Gramática - Nouns with Irregular Genders

In this section of the module we are going to review nouns. In Spanish a noun is called a sustantivo and it works the same way as it does in English except for one major difference: gender. That's right, in Spanish nouns are actually classified as either masculine or feminine. Try not to get too wrapped up in figuring out what would make one word "male" and another word "female" - note that these grammatical categories are called masculine and feminine, not male and female! It's got nothing to do with X and Y chromosomes (in other words, it is not about literal human gender). It's a mostly arbitrary system of putting words into one of two categories. So how do you know which is which? It's based on spelling.

Most nouns end either in an -o or an -a. The vast majority of the time words with an -o at the end are considered masculine and words ending in -a are feminine:

Nouns: Masculine -o Vs. Feminine -a

Masculine	Feminine
burro libro océano zapato	camiseta pantera revista tierra

Exceptions

There are some nouns which don't follow this rule (of course) and other nouns which end with a different letter entirely. For those words you'll just have to memorize the gender along with the word.

Let's take a look at the most common nouns with irregular genders:

Irregular Genders

-sión, ción, -dad, -tud, -umbre	-ma	-a and -o exceptions
Always feminine. For example: la exposición - the exhibition la habitación - the room la costumbre - the custom la felicidad - the happiness la solicitud - the application	Always masculine. For example: el problema - the problem el emblema - the emblem el enigma - the mystery	Some nouns ending in -a are masculine and some ending in -o are feminine. For example: Masculine: el día - the day el mapa - the map el planeta - the planet el cura - the priest Feminine: la foto - the photo la mano - the hand la radio - the radio la moto - the motorcycle

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