Hello readers! Welcome back to FluentlyFast. Today we'll be exploring nouns or 'Los Sustantivos'. Nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine. There are some gender neutral nouns though they are very rare. So let's begin!
MASCULINE NOUNS
The nouns that end in 'o', 'or', ‘aje’, ‘ma’, ‘ón’ are masculine.
Example
Un libro (A book)
El corazón (The heart)
Un ordenador (The computer)
FEMININE NOUNS
The nouns that end in 'a’, ‘dad’, ‘tad’, ‘tud’, ‘umbre’, ‘ez’, ‘sión’, ‘ción’ are
feminine.
Example
Una botella (A bottle)
La ciudad (The city)
La television (The television)
EXCEPTIONS-
La foto (photo)
La moto (motorcycle)
La mano (hand)
La radio (radio)
La razón (reason)
El aula (classroom)
El día (day)
El mapa (map)
El agua (water)
El hambre (hunger)
RULES
All days of the week are masculine.
Example
El lunes (Monday)
El martes (Tuesday)
El domingo (Sunday)
All colours are masculine.
Example
El azul (Blue)
El rojo (Red)
El amarillo (Yellow)
To make a noun that ends in ‘o’ feminine, replace the ‘o’ by an ‘a’.
Example
El chico (boy) -> La chica (girl)
El novio (boyfriend) -> La novia (girlfriend)
To make a noun that ends in a consonant feminine, add 'a'.
Example
El profesor (male teacher) -> La profesora (female teacher)
El león (lion) -> La leona (lioness)
Some nouns that end in ‘e’ and all those that end in ‘ista’, ‘ense’ have only one form for both genders.
Example
El/La cantante (singer)
El/La artista (artist)
To make a noun that ends in a vowel plural, add 's'.
Example
El libro -> Los libros (books)
La botella -> Las botellas (bottles)
To make a noun that ends in a consonant plural, add ‘es’.
Example
El ordenador -> Los ordenadores (computers)
La mujer -> Las mujeres (women)
To make a noun that ends in ‘z’ plural, replace the ‘z’ by ‘ces’.
Example
El lapis -> Los lapices (pencil)
La luz -> Las luces (light)
Nouns that end in ‘s’, do not change.
Example
El/Los paraguas (umbrellas)