Lesson 2: Spanish nouns — gender and number

Part 1: Why gender at all?

English has no grammatical gender. The table, the book, the problem, the hand — same article, no extra information attached.

Spanish is different. Every noun has a gender — masculine or feminine. There is no neuter. And it isn't about biology: la mesa (the table) is feminine, el libro (the book) is masculine. Tables aren't female and books aren't male — gender is just a grammatical label, two boxes Spanish has been sorting its nouns into for the last thousand years.

Gender controls three things downstream:

• The article: el / la, un / una
• Adjectives that agree: libro rojo vs casa roja
• Pronouns that replace the noun: lo veo (I see it — masc.) / la veo (I see it — fem.)

Get gender wrong and the whole sentence collapses around it. So we always learn a noun with its article: el libro, la mesa. Not the bare word — the block "article + word".

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Part 2: The main rule — gender by ending

80% of nouns follow a simple ending rule

Ending	Gender	Examples
-o	masculine	el libro, el gato, el vino
-a	feminine	la casa, la mesa, la chica
-ción / -sión	feminine	la canción, la televisión
-dad / -tad	feminine	la ciudad, la libertad
-umbre	feminine	la costumbre, la lumbre
-or (usually)	masculine	el amor, el color, el dolor
-aje	masculine	el viaje, el equipaje
-ma / -pa / -ta (from Greek)	masculine	el problema, el mapa, el planeta

Memorize by group, not by individual word. La canción, la lección, la nación, la información — all hang on the same -ción hook. Learn the hook once; dozens of nouns come along free.

If a noun ends in -e or a consonant outside the patterns above, gender isn't predictable — just learn it with the article: el coche (masc.), la leche (fem.), el pan (masc.), la sal (fem.).

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Part 3: The exceptions — the must-memorize list

Two short lists. The words on them are very common, so they need to be in your bones.

Words ending in -a that are masculine (Greek origin)

These came into Spanish from Greek via Latin. The -ma ending in particular often signals masculine.

Word	English
el problema	problem
el tema	topic, theme
el sistema	system
el programa	program
el clima	climate
el idioma	language
el día	day
el mapa	map
el planeta	planet
el sofá	sofa

Words ending in -o that are feminine

Word	English	Note
la mano	hand	the classic exception
la foto	photo	short for fotografía (feminine)
la moto	motorbike	short for motocicleta (feminine)
la radio	radio	in Latin America often el radio

Why these matter: el problema, la mano, el día, la foto aren't obscure words — you'll use them in your first week of speaking Spanish. So the "exceptions" are unavoidable. Get them in your bones now and you'll never hesitate later.

Bonus: words that change meaning with gender

Masculine	Feminine
el capital — capital (money)	la capital — capital city
el cura — priest	la cura — cure
el orden — order (arrangement)	la orden — order (command)
el policía — policeman	la policía — police force / policewoman

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Part 4: People and animals — male/female pairs

When a noun refers to a person or an animal that has a sex, Spanish usually gives you two forms.

Swap -o for -a

Masculine	Feminine
el chico	la chica
el gato	la gata
el perro	la perra
el hijo	la hija
el amigo	la amiga

Add -a to a consonant ending

Masculine	Feminine
el profesor	la profesora
el doctor	la doctora
el español	la española

One form, gender shown by the article

Many nouns ending in -e or -ista take the same form for both — the article alone tells you which.

Word	Use
el estudiante / la estudiante	male / female student
el artista / la artista	male / female artist
el dentista / la dentista	male / female dentist
el joven / la joven	young man / young woman

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Part 5: Plurals — three rules

Rule 1: word ends in a vowel → add -s

Singular	Plural
el libro	los libros
la casa	las casas
el día	los días
la mano	las manos

Rule 2: word ends in a consonant → add -es

Singular	Plural
el profesor	los profesores
la ciudad	las ciudades
el reloj	los relojes
la canción	las canciones (the tilde disappears!)

Watch the tilde: canción → canciones. In the singular the tilde is needed because the word is aguda and ends in -n. In the plural the word becomes llana — stress sits naturally on the second-to-last syllable, so the tilde drops. The pronunciation doesn't change; the spelling rule just kicks in.

Rule 3: word ends in -z → -ces

The -z flips to -c before the -es ending. Pure spelling convention.

Singular	Plural
el lápiz	los lápices
la luz	las luces
el pez	los peces
la vez	las veces

Special cases

Singular	Plural	Note
el lunes	los lunes	unchanged (ends in -s, stress not final)
la crisis	las crisis	unchanged
el café	los cafés	stressed vowel + tilde → +s
el rubí	los rubíes	stressed -í → +es

Trap: gender never changes in the plural. La mano → las manos — still feminine. El día → los días — still masculine. The plural article tracks gender too: los (masc.) / las (fem.).

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