so as you've been learning Spanish you have no doubt come across something that doesn't really
happen as much in English nouns have gender and even adjectives often will be the same gender and
number as the noun they describe this might make sense for words like el chico la chica el hombre
la mujer el profesor la profesora el papa or la mama but if we talk about cars or flowers those
don't really have any gender in English while in Spanish they do and it has nothing to do with if
you think it's girly or manly that isn't why they have gender in Spanish of course grammatically
speaking we'll use the term masculine for male and feminine for female and a lot of people get
confused because while the easy rule is that if it ends in an O it's masculine and if it ends in
a it's feminine that isn't always the case and you've probably learned other nouns that don't
end in our a so how do you know what gender is some people even teach that if a noun ends
with any of the letters in loaners it will be masculine nevertheless this is a generalization
and I think that the e is actually more up in the air than that so let's go ahead and take a
look at some general rules and exceptions of noun gender in Spanish I've come up with ten rules and
most common exceptions and please remember that while you can memorize this list the more you're
exposed Spanish through reading listening etc your brain will slowly sort out the gender thing
the first two will be the easy generalizations you've probably already sorted out rule number
one if a noun ends in O it's probably masculine so let's look at some examples el brazo a Louisville
Alero el suelo el sombrero and el telefono our own masculine and hey they end in O that's pretty easy
right but there are a few exceptions that will be feminine la mano la radio for words that
are shortened forms of longer feminine versions la foto is a shortened form of la fotografia la
moto is a 14-4 of la moto SiC Letta but otherwise generally fans know it it's masculine rule number
two if a noun ends in a it's probably feminine let's look at some examples la boca la camisa la
cartera la casa la oficina la piscina la ventana there are a few words that end in a but are still
masculine like the following el día el mediodía el sofá l-tron via also some words
from Greek and then a but they London Mata and PA and OB masculine like el idioma LP yama el
poema el problema el tema el planeta el cometa and el mapa you might also be wondering about
el agua which it actually is still feminine will see with feminine words that have the emphasis on
the first syllable which is an a that they will take a masculine article food or L so L agua el
alma el Aguila are all feminine but we use the L to not lose the a sound of their beginning if
their pluralized though they'll use last or unas beforehand and if you use a description it will
be feminine el agua esta Fria now for rule number three if a noun ends in D it's probably feminine
and some feminine nouns that end in d r+ you de la felicidad la Juventud la libertad la parte de
la salud la verdad etc etc etc and of course there are some exceptions that are masculine here's some
common ones el are deep el a tub el cesspit now let's move on to rule for if a noun ends in E it
could be masculine or feminine just depends some common masculine nouns that end in E are el coche
Alice Dante el perfume a LP a el maquillaje el restaurante a and some common feminine nouns that
end in ER la carne la calle la clase la frost La Leche la noche and la sangre but there are other
things that we can look for if a noun ends in a hey and hombre it will probably be masculine some
examples are el equipaje el paisaje elk alambre L in hambre and some exceptions are el hombre
and la palabra wait a minute el hombre that's got el in France gotta be masculine right but
no he'll hombre is really feminine like el agua the H is silent so it's really starting with an
A it uses el when singular but will still take a feminine description like in the sentence tengo
Mucha hombre then now's the end in Y a anything or hombre will probably be feminine some examples are
la serie a la superficie la costumbre la cumbre la inserted hombre la lagune Brahe la corriente
la fuente la gente and lament a of course there have to be exceptions to of the common words that
end in teh that are masculine are el diente and el puente let's call the rule 5 if a noun ends in an
L it will probably be masculine some examples of masculine nouns ending in el el animal el árbol
el hospital el metal el papel and el material and some exceptions that end in el aire feminine
are la cárcel la miel la piel lasalle and levon moving on to rule 6 if a noun ends in an n it's
probably masculine some of the common examples we'll see our elbow tone el coche on el corazon
Alex Amin el-hawa el pan el Pantalone and El train but of course there are some exceptions
that are feminine lahmacun la razón and last are 10 all ending and but are still feminine
if a noun ends in E own it's also probably going to be feminine some examples la opinión la cancion
la confusion la nación la religion and la reunión see the pattern there but of course here are some
exceptions el avión el bastón and el camión but again typically Eon will be feminine moving on
to rule number seven if a noun ends in our it's probably going to be masculine some of the common
words would be el amor el calor la roar alpha or el Mar LPR and el valor some exceptions are the
floor and Lalla Ward and actually you might come across el Mar being la Mar when it's used in a
more poetic sense maybe in poetry or in songs and to romanticize it a little bit rule 8 in rule 8 if
a noun ends in an S it's probably masculine some examples are L analysis el autobus illustris el
hiss Alinta revs el más el pais and he'll virus and of course there are some exceptions to this
rule Lodi avetis lemaise Flores and lactose also noticed that words ending and ceased
will be feminine la Christie's lado ceaseless in taxes and lattices or words ending it ETS talking
about some kind of a medical condition will be feminine as well la are three T's la appendicitis
la bronchitis hey two more rule number nine if a word ends in a Z it's probably feminine some
common examples are la cruz la paz la luz la paz la rioja des flower hiss la vez and vamoose but
some exceptions are masculine el arroz el us a la Pucelle Matthysse and help s and one more
rule and rule number 10 f announ ends in a vowel with an accent mark on it or a stressed vowel that
is it's probably masculine some common examples are el café el shampoo el ruby el sofá LT and LTZ
Wow hopefully you're not completely overloaded yet because this can get interesting now some
can actually be both genders and that will change their meaning let's look at some of their common
ones el capital would mean money and la capital will be the city and colera would be the sickness
and la colera would be anger el coma is a coma the medical condition and la coma is a comma
L cometa is a comment while cometa is a word in some places for kite el corte is a cut you might
cut yourself and la corte is used for the king or Queens Court el corte the priest la corte the cure
el frente the front la friend de your forehead el mañana you barely ever say with el would be
tomorrow la mañana would be the morning el organ is order arrangement that's not chaos that is la
orden is when somebody gives you a commander an order el papa is the pope la Papa is the potato
el part they would be a message or a report la parte they would be a part or a portion help in
the end they would be an earring lop in the end they would be the hill or slope help this would
be a fish while lapis would be tar and Alvarado would be a radius or radium while la radio would
be a radio but I also learned some people will use el radio either way for a radio so that we
could go both ways so there you go those change meaning based on the gender and finally what do
we do if we want to talk about gender with animals well for the most common ones they usually have
gender already like pero para kata-kata el caballo de agua elk are narrow la Vega El Gallo laga ena
el pato la pata el Toro la vaca la hone la leona el venado llama Nava seeing the pattern so far
for most of those are just kind of Rene instead but others are simply one gender regardless of
the actual gender of the animal you're talking about so here's a list of a lot of animals and
notice that while they have gender grammatically that doesn't actually refer to a third male or
a female so what do you want to do if you want to talk about a male frog notice the word frog
is la Rana well that's feminine again it's not referring to the gender of the Frog it's just a
grammatical gender but what if you want to say the male frog well hmm that's interesting meet
some poor in your story that people know it's a male frog so you can simply add the word macho
after the animal lacrima macho this is interesting notice that we won't say match up even though it's
describing grana because you're making shirts may also macho and if you have multiple male
frogs specimens plus dramas macho's if you wanted to clarify the animals female you do
the description em bruh or embrasse after the animal so la Rana Umbra and la Rana macho would
be the different genders and el pase macho or el pase em bruh will tell you the different genders
of the fish confused hopefully not and that's it for this lesson on now in gender in Spanish
hopefully you found it very helpful let me know if you have any questions or comments below and
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out any of these related videos by clicking on the different boxes gracias por mirar e nos vemos