In this discussion, we’ll explore the different ways nouns are used to represent people, animals, things, and their gender forms.

A noun is a naming word for a living being, thing or idea, for example, man, chair, happiness, Albert.

Using nouns

In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. This is called their gender. Even words for things have a gender.

Whenever you are using a noun, you need to know whether it is masculine or feminine as this affects the form of other words used with it, such as: adjectives that describe it and articles, such as el or una that go before it.

You can find information about gender by looking the word up in a dictionary. When you come across a new noun, always learn the word for the or a that goes with it to help you remember its gender.

• el or un before a noun usually tells you it is masculine
• la or una before a noun tells you it is feminine.

We refer to something as singular when we are talking about just one of them, and as plural when we are talking about more than one. The singular is the form of the noun you will usually find when you look a noun up in the dictionary. As in English, nouns in Spanish change their form in the plural.

Adjectives, articles and pronouns are also affected by whether a noun is singular or plural.

Remember that you have to use the right word for (the), (a) and so on according to the gender of the Spanish noun

1. Nouns referring to people

Most nouns referring to men and boys are masculine.

• el hombre (the man)
• el rey (the king)

Most nouns referring to women and girls are feminine.

• la mujer (the woman)
• la reina (the queen)

When the same word is used to refer to either men/boys or women/girls, its gender usually changes depending on the sex of the person it refers to.

• el estudiante (the male student)
• la estudiante (the female student)
• el belga (the Belgian man)
• la belga (the Belgian woman)

Some words for people have only one possible gender, whether they refer to a male or a female.

la persona (the male or female person)
la víctima (the male or female victim)

In English, we can sometimes make a word masculine or feminine by changing the ending, for example, Englishman and Englishwoman or prince and princess. In Spanish, very often the ending of a noun changes depending on whether it refers to a man or a woman.

• el camarero (the waiter)
• la camarera (the waitress)
• el empleado (the employee male)
• la empleada (the employee female)
• el inglés (the Englishman)
• la inglesa (the Englishwoman)

2. Nouns referring to animals

In English we can choose between words like (bull) or (cow), depending on the sex of the animal. In Spanish too, there are sometimes separate words for male and female animals.

• el toro (the bull)
• la vaca (the cow)

Sometimes, the same word with different endings is used for male and female animals.

• el perro (the male dog)
• la perra (the female dog)
• el gato (the male cat)
• la gata (the female cat)

When you do not know or care what sex the animal is, you can usually use the masculine form as a general word.

Words for other animals don’t change according to the sex of the animal. Just learn the Spanish word with its gender, which is always the same.

• el sapo (the toad)
• el hámster (the hamster)
• la cobaya (the guinea pig)
• la tortuga (the tortoise)

3. Nouns referring to things

In English, we call all things – for example, table, car, book, apple – (it). In Spanish, however, things are either masculine or feminine. As things don’t divide into sexes the way humans and animals do, there are no physical clues to help you with their gender in Spanish. Try to learn the genders when you learn the word.

There are lots of rules to help you. Certain endings are usually found on masculine nouns, while other endings are usually found on feminine nouns.

masculine ending	examples
-o	el libro (the books)
	el periódico (the newspaper)
	PERO
	la mano (the hand)
	la foto (the foto)
	la moto (the motorbike)
	la radio (the radio)

The following types of word are also masculine.

• names of the days of the week and the months of the year
  • Te veré el lunes. (I’ll se you on Monday)
• the names of languages
  • el inglés (English)
  • el español (Spanish)
  • Estudio el español. (I’m studying Spanish
• the names of rivers, mountains and seas
  • el Ebro (the Ebro)
  • el Everest (Everest)
  • el Atlántico (the Atlantic)

feminine ending	examples
-a	la casa (the house) la cara (the face) PERO el día (the day) el mapa (the map) el planeta (the planet) el tranvía (the tram) …and many words ending in -ma; el problema (the problem), el programs (the programme), el sistema (the system), el clima (the climate)
-ción -sión	la lección (the lesson) la estación (the station) la expresión (the expression)
-dad -tad -tud	la ciudad (the city) la libertad (freedom) la multitud (the crowd)

Some words have different meanings depending on whether they are masculine or feminine…

masculine	meaning	feminine	meaning
el capital	(the capital money)	la capital	(the capital city)
el cometa	(the comet)	la cometa	(the kite)
el cura	(the priest)	la cura	(the cure)
el guía	(the male guide)	la guía	(the guidebook/ the female guide)

4. Gender forms of words

Like English, Spanish sometimes has very different words for males and females.

• el hombre (the man)
• la mujer (the woman)
• el rey (the king
• la reina (the queen)

Many Spanish words can be used to talk about men or women simply by changing the ending. For example, if the word for the male ends in -o, you can almost always make it feminine by changing the -o to -a.

• el amigo (the male friend)
• la amiga (the female friend)
• el hermano (the brother)
• la hermana (the sister)
• el empleado (the male employee)
• la empleada (the female employee)
• el viudo (the widower)
• la viuda (the widow)

Notice that some words referring to people end in -a in the masculine as well as the feminine. Only the article el, la, un y una can tell you what gender the noun is…

• el dentista (the male dentist)
• la dentista (the female dentist)
• el deportista (the sportsman)
• la deportista (the sportswoman)

Many masculine nouns ending in a consonant (any letter other than a vowel) become feminine by adding an -a

• el español (the Spanish man)
• la española (the Spanish woman)
• el profesor (the male teacher)
• la profesora (the female teacher)

If the last vowel of the masculine word has an accent, this is dropped in the feminine form.

• un inglés (an Englishman)
• una inglesa (an Englishwoman)
• un francés (a Frenchman)
• una francesa (a Frenchwoman)

Resumen

1. The ending of a Spanish word often helps you work out its gender: for instance, if a word ends in -o, it is probably masculine; if it ends in -a, it is probably feminine.
2. These endings generally mean that the noun is feminine: -ción, -sión, -dad, -tad, -tud
3. Days of the week and months of the year are masculine, So are languages, mountains and seas.
4. You can change the ending of some nouns from -o to -a to make a masculine noun feminine.

Forming plurals

Plurals ending in –s and –es

In English we usually make nouns plural by adding an (–s) to the end house(s), book(s), although we do have some nouns which are irregular and do not follow this pattern mouse… mice, child… children.

You have to use los for masculine nouns or las for feminine nouns with plural nouns in Spanish. Any adjective that goes with the noun also has to agree with it, as does any pronoun that replaces it.

To form the plural in Spanish, add -s to most nouns ending in a vowel a, e, i, o or u which doesn’t have an accent.

• el libro (the book)
• los libros (the books)
• el hombre (the man)
• los hombres (the men)
• la profesora (the female teacher)
• las profesoras (the female teachers)

Add -es to singular nouns ending in a consonant.

• el profesor (the male teacher)
• los profesores (the male/male and female teachers)
• la ciudad (the town/city)
• las ciudades (the town/cities)

Note that some foreign words, that is, words which have come from another language, such as English ending in a consonant just add -s

• el disc-jockey (the DJ)
• los disc-jockeys (the DJs)

Words ending in -s which have an unstressed final vowel do not change in the plural.

• el paraguas (the umbrella)
• los paraguas (the umbrellas)
• el lunes (on Monday)
• los lunes (on Mondays)

Most singular nouns ending in an accented vowel add -s in the plural, but those ending in í and sometimes ú usually have two possible plurals with -es or -s

• el café (the café)
• los cafés (the cafés)
• el sofá (the sofa)
• los sofás (the sofas)
• el jabalí (the boar)
• los jabalíes or jabalís (the boars)

When nouns are made up of two separate words, they are called compound nouns, for example, el abrelatas (the tin-opener) and el hombre rana (the frogman). Some of these nouns don’t change in the plural, for example, los abrelatas, while others do, for example, los hombres rana. It is always best to check in a dictionary to see what the plural is.

Spelling changes with plurals ending in -s

Singular nouns which end in an accented vowel and either -n or -s drop the accent in the plural.

• la canción (the song)
• las canciones (the songs)
• el autobús (the bus)
• los autobuses (the buses)

Singular nouns of more than on syllable which end in -en and don’t already have an accent, add one in the plural.

• el examen (the exam)
• los exámenes (the exams)
• el joven (the youth)
• los jóvenes (young people)

Singular nouns ending in -z change to -c in the plural.

• la luz (the light)
• las luces (the lights)
• la vez (the times)
• las veces (the times)

Plural versus singular

A few words relating to clothing that are plural in English can be singular in Spanish.

• una praga (a pair of knickers)
• un slip (a pair of underpants)
• un pantalón (a pair of trousers)

A few common words behave differently in Spanish from the way they behave in English.

• un mueble (a piece of furniture
• unos muebles (some furniture)
• una noticia (a piece of news)
• unas noticias (some news)
• un consejo (a piece of advice)
• unos consejos (some advice)

Resumen

1. Add -s to form the plural of a noun ending in an unaccented vowel.
2. Add -es to form the plural of most nouns ending in a consonant.
3. Drop the accent when adding plural -es to nouns in an accented vowel + -n or -s.
4. Add an accent when adding plural -s to words of more than one syllable ending in -en.
5. Change -z to -c when forming the plural of words like luz.
6. A few common words are plural in English but not in Spanish.