So far, we’ve been mainly focusing on verbs.
And deservedly so, how verbs are treated in Spanish is probably the item that trips up
English speakers the most at the beginning.
But you obviously can’t build a sentence without a noun, right?
And nouns in Spanish can get kind of tricky too.
So in today’s lesson, we’re gonna go over a topic that is hard for we Gringo’s to
even fathom at the beginning--let alone use correctly--The Sexualization of nouns.
I’m just going to give to you straight.
All nouns in Spanish are either male, female or both.
Kinda weird.
Think about the word “boy” in English.
That’s a male word.
“Girl” is the female equivalent.
That’s an easy example because there’s something inherently different between “boys”
and “girls”.
Boys have penises, girls have vaginas.
But in Spanish, all nouns are either male, female or both--and it has nothing to with
the masculinity or femininity of the word.
For example, “beard” a word obviously used mostly for men, is “barba” in Spanish.
“Barba” is a female word.
You can tell by that A at the end.
Female nouns in Spanish end in A.
On the other side, “dress” is a word used mainly for women, but it’s a masculine word
“vestido”.
You can tell it’s masculine by the O at the end.
Male nouns end in O.
So there’s the rule--this covers about 75-85% of all the nouns.
Nouns that end in O are male.
Nouns that end in A are female.
“Vestido” is masculine.
“Barba” is feminine.
But, like most rules in Spanish, there are some exceptions.
The one that trips me up most is when it’s the opposite of what it should be.
The word I hate the most is “problem”.
In Spanish, “problem” is “problema”.
But even though it ends in A, “problema” is a masculine word.
Ouch.
That really sucks.
But to be honest, there’s really only 10-20 common example of this, where it’s actually
the opposite of what it looks like it should be.
And if you mess it up at the beginning, it won’t stop you from being understood even
a little.
Now, this whole masculine/feminine thing has ramifications throughout the sentence because
you have to make lots of the other words match the noun.
So, if you’re talking about a “dress” or “vestido” you’d say the words “a”,
“the” or “pretty” differently than you would if you’re talking about a “beard”
or “barba”.
The point of this video, isn’t to teach you all those differences, it’s to just
focus in on the whole idea of nouns being masculine and/or feminine--we’ll get to
the other stuff in future videos.
But right now, I want to tell you about one of those ramifications, “the”.
I only need to bring it up because that’s what you’ll use on your flashcards when
you’re memorizing a word to know if it’s masculine or feminine.
Since “problema” ends in A, but is really masculine, we need a way to know that on our
flashcards.
So, on one side of the card you should write “problem” and on the other side, “el
problema”.
“El” means “the”.
Be careful, because “él” with the accent over the E means “he”.
That’s only confusing at first, because after the beginning it’s really easy to
realize what is meant by the context.
So on one side of your card will be “problem” and on the other side will be the equivalent
of “the problem” or “el problema”.
Then for the female words, “the” is “la”.
So “the beard” would be “la barba”.
It gets repetitive to keep writing “the” so there’s no need to include it on every
flashcard.
On one side, just write “beard” and on the other side, write “la barba”.
Okay, that’s pretty straight forward, no?
Generally speaking, if it ends in O it’s masculine.
If it ends in A, it’s feminine.
And there are a couple handfuls of common exceptions which you just have to memorize.
Well, we’re not done yet.
In Spanish, words like “boy” and “girl”--they work the same way.
“Boy” is “chico” and “girl” is “chica”.
Your flashcards would have “boy” on one side and “el chico” on the other then
“girl” on one side of the second card and “la chica” on the other.
That still follows the O/A rule, but there’s actually two different forms of the same noun.
“Dress” is just “vestido” no matter who’s wearing the dress.
But for most living things, you change the ending so it’s either masculine or feminine--“chico”
or “chica”.
A few more things.
Some nouns can be masculine OR feminine but still be the same word in the same form!
The only way you can tell is by the “the”.
So “student” is “estudiante”.
“The male student” would be “el estudiante” and “the female student” would be “la
estudiante”.
Same word, just different version of “the” to show us what’s happening in real life.
Next.
There are certain patterns you can look for with words that don’t end in O or A. I hate
to even tell you the patterns, because it’s really better to just memorize the specific
nouns and before you know it, you’ll be able to just feel it.
But to make it clear, I think I really need to share at least one of them.
Don’t waste your time memorizing these endings, just memorize the words and from there you’ll
be able to easily figure it out for other words.
Okay, hopefully this example will make what I’m talking about clear.
Words that end in -sión are female.
So “television” is “televisión” in Spanish and is female because it ends in -sión
so it would be “la televisión”.
That’s a pattern.
Once you know that, it’s not hard to figure out that “decisión” the word for “decision”
in Spanish, is also female because it too ends in “sión”.
So “the decision” is “la decisión”.
There are a handful of other endings that work like this too, and I’ll list them for
you at gringoespanol.com/nouns-sexuality/ just so you can get familiar with them.
But I’m telling you, you’re much better off just memorizing the words with either
“el” or “la”.
Once you know really well that “la televisión” is female, it becomes automatic to say “la
decisión” because your brain/mouth connection is already well established subconsciously.
Okay that’s it.
If you needed to boil this video down into one concise rule, it would be: don’t worry
about the other rules, just memorize the nouns along with “el” or “la”, then you’ll
know it for each of those words and feel the patterns so you’ll basically know all the
words that follow those patterns.
Sounds like a time-saver to me.
If you have any questions about this or need it cleared up at all, I want you to message
me on Facebook or email me at jordan@gringoespanol.com.
I want to make these videos clear.
If they’re not, I need to know that.
You’d be doing me a favor.
To help you get started on the right foot with all this, I’ve included a list of nouns
you should memorize using The Flashcard Strategy over at gringoespanol.com/nouns-sexuality/.
I promise, I’m not wasting your time just so you can practice this male/female thing--we’re
killing two birds with one stone here.
On that list are some very common nouns you’ll definitely need in real life no matter what,
and some of the most common examples of all the different secondary rules, words that
don’t just follow the simple O/A rule.
So go to gringoespanol.com/nouns-sexuality/.
Grab the Word List, make your flashcards and learn those words.
And if you liked this video, why don’t you go ahead and press the like button right now
or give me the big thumbs up--cause...
it makes me feel good.
I’ll see ya next time.
Hasta luego.