Nouns and Articles
All nouns in Spanish have gender. They are either masculine of feminine.
Masculine nouns:
Nouns that end in -o are generally masculine. All nouns that refer to a male person are also masculine.
| el libro | the book |
| el cuaderno | the notenook |
| el hombre | the man |
| el Papa | the Pope |
| el padre | the father |
Nouns that end in -a:
Most nounds that end in -a are feminine. All nouns that refer to a female person are feminine.
||| ||| |la libreta| the notebook| |la escuela| the school | |la mujer| the woman| |la madre| the mother|
||| ||| |el día|the day| |el mapa| the map| |el planeta| the planet| |el sofá| the sofa, the couch|
Nouns that end in -dad, -tad, -tud, and -umbre are feminine:
||| ||| |la universidad| the university| |la dificultad| the difficulty| |la multitud| the gathering| |la muchedumbre| the gathering|
Nouns ending in -ión:
All nouns end in -ión are feminine with the exception of "camión" (truck) and "avión" (plane).
||| ||| |la canción| the song| |la lección| lesson| |la explicación| explain| |la comunicación| communication| |la nación| nation|
Other Noun endings:
For the correct gender of nouns that end in other consonants or vowels, one must consult a dictionary.
||| ||| |el lápiz| the pencil| |la luz| the light| |el tren| the train| |la pared| the wall|
Plural form of noun endings:
To form the plural of nouns endings in a vowel, we add an (s.) If the noun ends in a consonant add -es.
||| ||| |el libro| los libros| |la escuela| las escuelas| |el profesor| los profesores| |la universidad| las univerisdades| |la nación|las naciones|
If a noun ends in -z, to form the plural it is necessary to change the -z to a -c before adding -es.
||| ||| |la luz|las luces| |el lápiz|los lápices|
The Articles
As you may have observed in all the previous examples, nouns in Spanish must be proceded by an article, either definite or indefinite, the translates the English article the, a, or an.
||Singular| Plural| |||| |Masculine| el| los| |Feminine|la|las|
The English singular indefinite articles a or an, and their plural some, a few, are formed as follows:
||Singluar|Plural| |||| |Masculine|un|unos| |Feminine|una|unas|
- el profesor --> los profesores
- un profesor --> unos profesores
- la profesora --> las profesoras
- una profesora --> unas profesoras