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Gender in Spanish We know that all people have gender, but in Spanish all nouns have gender. This means that every word for a person, place, thing or idea is either masculine or feminine. This can be confusing, especially when some words, like persona (person) or deportista can refer to a person that is man or a woman. Why is it important to know if a noun is feminine or masculine? Because the gender of the noun changes the article or adjective that you can use with the noun. Masculine nouns are used with articles like el or un and have adjectives that end in -o, while female nouns use the articles la or una and have adjectives that end in -a. To know if a noun is masculine or feminine, you should look to see what letter(s) the word ends with. All nouns in Spanish have a gender, and are either feminine or masculine. Female and Male Figures Masculine Nouns Here are some of the letters that we usually see at the end of masculine words. • Most words that end in the letter -o are masculine. Some examples are hijo (son), zapato (shoe) and mono (monkey). Sometimes the word just breaks the rules, and we have to memorize that they are different, such as la mano, El deportista. Here it might help to connect it with a feminine word that is opposite, so you can remember the words in pairs. La mano (hand) is feminine, but el pie (foot) is masculine. Thinking of them together might help you remember their correct gender. Feminine Nouns Feminine nouns have different letters at the end of them than masculine ones. Here are the common endings for feminine words: • The ending -a is usually feminine, just like -o is masculine. Two examples are doctora (female doctor) and camisa (shirt). Exceptions to the Feminine Noun Endings Although words that end in -a are usually feminine, we already know that the words with -ma at the end of them are masculine. There is one other ending that ends in -a, -ista, that is actually both feminine and masculine. It is usually at the end of words that describe people, like artista (artist) and realista (realist). One other common word that ends in -a but that is masculine is the word el día (day). The opposite time of day, la noche (night), is feminine, so you can think of them as a pair. Adjectives List in Spanish: Aburrido(a) Boring Afortunado(a) Lucky Agradable Pleasant Alto(a) Tall Amable Friendly Amargo(a) Bitter Amigable Friendly Ancho(a) Wide Apretado Tight Bajo(a) Low Barato(a) Cheap Blando(a) Soft Bonito(a) Nice , pretty Bueno(a) Good Caliente Hot Caro(a) Expensive Cerca Near Cerrado(a) Closed , shut Correcto(a) Right , correct Corto(a) Short Delgado(a) Thin, slim, lean Débil Weak Desafortunado(a) Unlucky Desagradable Unpleasant Difícil Difficult, hard Divertido(a) Fun Dulce Sweet Duro(a) Hard Educado(a) Polite Emocionado(a) Excited Enfermo sick Enojado(a) Angry Equivocado(a) Wrong Estrecho(a) Narrow Excelente Excellent Fácil Easy Falso(a) FALSE Feliz Happy Feo(a) Ugly delgado (a) Thin Frio(a) Cold Fuerte Strong Generoso(a) Generous Gordo(a) Fat Grande Big Grueso(a) Thick Hermoso(a) Beautiful Holgado/suelto (a) Loose , baggy Importante Important Inteligente Intelligent Interesante Interesting Inútil Useless Joven Young Largo(a) Long Lento(a) Slow Ligero(a) Light Limpio(a) Clean Lleno(a) Full Loco(a) Crazy Luminoso(a) Bright Mal educado/grosero (a) Rude Malo(a) Bad Mojado(a)= Wet Muchos(as)Many