How do you know the gender of Spanish nouns?

How do you know the gender of Spanish nouns

To know the gender of Spanish nouns, take a look at the noun ending or the gender of the article before it. It is important to identify the gender of Spanish nouns because the adjectives and other words accompanying them agree accordingly. Take, for example, the feminine noun casa (house). If we want to add an adjective to describe it, we need to make it feminine as well, like this: casa bonita (beautiful house). This post will review how to recognize the gender of animate and inanimate nouns and review misleading nouns’ gender, nouns that change meaning based on gender, and nouns referring to animals. Keep reading to learn more!

Table of Contents

For a review of grammar terms used in the post, make sure to check out the Unpacking the grammar section at the end.

How do you recognize gender in Spanish nouns?

To recognize gender in Spanish nouns, examine the ending of the noun: most nouns ending in -o are masculine (hermano, brother; libro, book), and those ending in -a are feminine (hermana, sister; taza, cup.) Although this is a good starting point, this is not always the case, you can also memorize the various ending patterns (listed below) for nouns referring to inanimate objects.

Gender of nouns referring to animate objects (physical gender)

To identify the gender of a noun in Spanish, take a look at its ending. The general rule says that nouns ending in -a are feminine and those ending in -o are masculine. Look at the examples below: 

Masculine
niño
boy
Feminine
niña
girl

Sometimes the masculine noun referring to an animate object ends in a consonant, for example pintor (painter). In that case, make the noun feminine simply by adding an -a:

  • pintorpintora             painter
  • japonésjaponesa      Japanese
  • campeón campeona champion 

Let’s take a look at other cases of the gender of nouns that refer to animate objects.

Nouns that remain the same and only change the article

Some nouns in Spanish are the same regardless of gender and only change the article. This means they have a singular form for both feminine and masculine, while only the article changes. Look at the following examples:

  • el / la artista           the artist
  • el / la piloto            the pilot
  • el / la paciente       the patient
  • el / la estudiante    the student
  • el / la intérprete     the interpreter

Nouns ending in ‘-e’

There are a few nouns that end in -e in their masculine form that refer to animate objects. For these cases, the feminine form is made by dropping the -e and adding an -a:

  • el jefe / la jefa           
    the boss
  • el sastre / la sastra   
    the tailor

Nouns that change slightly for feminine and masculine forms

For some nouns, masculine and feminine forms are somewhat different:

  • el reyla reina               the king – the queen
  • el actorla actriz           the actor – the actress
  • el alcaldela alcaldesa  the mayor

Gender of nouns referring to inanimate objects

For the gender of nouns referring to inanimate objects, such as things, places, ideas, etc, the rules are different. Here are some rules and endings that will help you identify their gender with ease. 

Masculine nouns

Nouns ending in the consonants -n, -r, -s, -l, -x and -y are usually masculine* (scroll down to see exceptions in the “Misleading nouns” section).

-nun / el corazón    a / the heart
-run / el amor       a / the love
-sun / el bus        a / the bus
-lun / el árbol      a / the tree
-xun / el torax      a / the thorax
-yun / el buey      a / the ox

There are also some categories of nouns that are always masculine. These are: the days of the week, colors, numbers, languages, the names of rivers, oceans, mountains, volcanoes, and compound nouns formed with a verb. You’ll find some examples in the following table:

Days of the weekel lunes Monday
Colorsel azul the blue
Numbersel diez the ten
Languagesel español Spanish
Rivers, oceans, mountains, and volcanoesel Amazonas The Amazon
el Atlántico The Atlantic
el Aconcagua The Aconcagua
el Cotopaxi The Cotopaxi
Compound nouns made from verbsel sacacorchos the corkscrew

Finally, there are some other noun endings that are typically an indication of masculine gender.

These are: -aje, -ambre, -ate, -ete, -ote, and -miento. Take a look at the following examples:

-ajeel traje the suit
-ambreel hambre the hunger
-ateel escaparate the wardrobe
-eteel clarinete the clarinet
-oteel camarote the bunk bed
-mientoel pimiento the pepper

Feminine nouns

Nouns ending in -dad, -tad, -tud, -ión, -ez, -eza, -umbre, -is, -ia, -ie, and -ncia are usually feminine* (scroll down to see exceptions in the “Misleading nouns” section).

-dadla solidaridad the solidarity
-tadla amistad the friendship
-tudla latitud the latitude
-iónla canción the song
-ezla timidez the shyness
-ezala belleza the beauty
-umbrela cumbre the summit
-isla crisis the crisis
-iala gracia the grace
-iela superficie the surface
-nciala emergencia the emergency

Nouns ending in ‘-e’

Nouns ending in -e can be masculine or feminine. There is no trick to remembering these, so to know their gender, always take a look at the article before it. In its singular form, a feminine noun will be accompanied by the articles la (the) or una (a, an) and the masculine noun will go with the articles el (the) or un (a, an).

Masculine
el restaurante
the restaurant
el cine
the cinema
Feminine
la clase
the class
la noche
the night

If you want to practice, we have created an exercise for you as well as a list of the most common Spanish nouns ending in -e.

What are misleading nouns?

Misleading nouns are nouns that refer to inanimate objects that may have the ending of a specific gender but are actually the opposite gender. These nouns are exceptions to the rules above. Look at some examples in the following table:

Masculine
el clima
weather
el día
day
el idioma
language
Feminine
la catedral
cathedral
la foto
photo
la imagen
image
Do you want to know more? We have created an exercise that you can use to learn more misleading Spanish nouns.

Nouns that change meaning based on their gender

Spanish has some nouns that change their meanings based on their gender (meaning when they are used with feminine or masculine articles).

MasculineMeaning
el Papa the Pope
el capital the investment
FeminineMeaning
la papa the potato
la capital the capital city

Nouns referring to animals

Nouns referring to animals can be tricky in Spanish. They may only be in the masculine or the feminine gender or may even have different words depending on the gender. Check out this list for a quick reference about the different cases and words for animals based on their gender.

Summary

It’s important to identify the gender of nouns in Spanish so that they can agree with the adjectives and other words used to accompany them. To do so, there are some rules we need to remember. Let’s see what we’ve learned:
  • Nouns that refer to animate objects will generally have two forms, masculine and feminine, which will be easily identifiable by their endings (-o or -a).
  • Nouns ending in consonants like -n, -r, -s, -l, -x, or -y are typically masculine.
  • Nouns ending in -d, -ión, -ez, or -is are typically feminine.
  • Nouns that end in -e and misleading nouns are hard to tell, so always look at the article in front of the word.
If you want to practice these two last cases, we have created this exercise for you. Finally, if you want an easy way to remember some of these endings, this acronym might be helpful.
Are you interested in learning more about Spanish Grammar? Check out our Spanish Grammar Homepage.
Unpacking the grammar

Adjectives are words that are used to describe something, including people, animals, things, places, or ideas. Adjectives are used to make many types of descriptions, such as stating the color, amount, category, appearance, or possession of something or someone.

el niño pequeño              the small child

Meet The Author:
Natalia Molina
Natalia Molina Ceballos
Spanish Coach
Natalia is a Spanish coach at Mango Languages.

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Extra Resources:

Animal Nouns
Nouns That Change Meaning

Activities:

Nouns Activity 1
Nouns Activity 2
Nouns Activity 3

Activities:

Nouns Activity 1
Nouns Activity 2
Nouns Activity 3

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