A1 · Nouns and articles
Masculine or feminine
The ending gives it away most of the time — and three times it does not.
The basic rule is short: nouns in -o are masculine, nouns in -a are feminine. It carries further than any other rule in Spanish and covers most of the vocabulary.
On top of that come reliable endings: -ción, -sión, -dad, -tad and -tud are feminine without exception; -or, -aje and -ma of Greek origin are masculine.
And then the outliers, learnt with the word: el día, el mapa, el sofá, el problema — masculine in spite of the -a. La mano, la foto, la moto — feminine in spite of the -o. There are few of them and they come up often, which together means you learn them quickly, because you need them all the time.
Die Form
| -o | männlich: el libro, el coche |
| -a | weiblich: la casa, la puerta |
| -ción, -sión | weiblich: la estación, la decisión |
| -dad, -tad, -tud | weiblich: la ciudad, la libertad |
| -or, -aje | männlich: el color, el viaje |
| -ma (Greek) | männlich: el problema, el tema |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
The article is part of the word and is learnt with it.
la mesa, el librothe table, the book
Everything in the sentence agrees with the gender.
La casa blanca es muy antigua.The white house is very old.
Words for people often have both forms.
el profesor y la profesorathe male teacher and the female teacher
Before a stressed a- the article is el, feminine nouns included.
el agua fría, el águilathe cold water, the eagle
Woran man es erkennt
- -ción
- -dad
- -aje
- -ma
- el
- la
Beispielsätze
La decisión no fue fácil.The decision was not easy.
El problema es el precio.The problem is the price.
Me duele la mano derecha.My right hand hurts.
El día está muy nublado.It is a very cloudy day.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
English speakers have no gender to transfer, so the temptation is to skip it — to learn mesa and put the article in later. It never comes later: the adjective, the pronoun and the article all wait on it, so a noun without a gender is a noun you cannot yet use in a sentence. Learn the two words as one from the start.
Never learn a noun without its article.
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