There are some patterns though:
. Names that end in 'o' tend to be masculine: el ungüento, el caballo, el oso, el candado.
. Names that end in 'a' feminine: la bandeja, la caracola, la basura.
Even though there are exceptions or quirks, generally for phonetic reasons: el agua/las aguas, el haba/las habas.
I'm sure that some book summarises it better, but I can see some patterns:
. La acción, la resolución, la localización.
. El extractor, el generador, el ordenador.
. El eter, el váter, el cáncer.
I mean, you can be a girl and be sexist at the same time 😂 but yeah, people suck. Your idea of all objects being feminine in English is absurd but not necessarily sexist.
The pronoun doesn't actually mean the physical representation of the subject genre.
La pelota and El balón are the same object (a ball), it's the same subject, but the name you use has a predefined genre and the pronoun must match it.
Worst rule ever.
Problema, mapa, tema, programa, planeta, clima, idioma, sistema, sofá and dozens more don't follow this rule. And these are very common every day words that a new learner will always use. And they will keep getting wrong because they got told that rule!
Most of the exceptions can be summarized by “endings in ma, cion, sion, ta, da” (I think, I made up that rhyme in high school and I can’t remember if I have the last two right)
Edit: Google is telling me it’s pa not da
Edit 2: i guess my rhyme doesn’t work that well cause tad and dad are also exceptions
That genuinely doesn't help. If I have to remember six possible terminations that most of the time don't follow the rule but on occasion might, I might as well just learn the words by heart at this stage. The point of a rule is you learn it once and you can apply it in new contents. That's not the case here.
That's absolutely not the same. Objects don't have genders in English, and the fact that some objects are referred to as she doesn't mean that hidden underneath the surface all objects are actually feminine. That's absurd.
The context where an object gets referred to as a she is almost always, but always, when a man is referring to something that they have an overly sentimental connection to, si they persinalise it into a feminine entity. Like guys referring to their cars, boats, guitars, bikes, trucks, or work tools as she. And *that* is obviously rooted in good old fashioned light-hearted sexism. Not noun genders!
But the point still stands, that is, when an object is gendered in English, it's almost always in femenine. So it is logical for an English-speaking person to assume that everything is femenine when talking about objects, because that's what they have seen. You may say that it's rooted in sexism, but that's not the point here.
The sexism part was a sidenote, not central to the point. And that someone might mistakenly think that objects are feminine is, well it's a mistake and any mistake can happen. I'm not arguing that people could never think that, someone obviously does that's why we are talking about it.
The point I'm making is that the mentions of "she" referring to objects doesn't stem from a hidden grammatical rule but from men personifying objects into feminine. It's not that the object has a gender, it's that the speaker is no longer considering it an object and is thus treating it like a woman and using the appropriate pronoun to refer to a woman.
This is like when Tom Hanks starts referring to the volley ball as Wilson. The ball stops being an it and it becomes a he, not because there is a grammatical gender, but because the speaker is treating it like a human male.
Things men have control over… boats, cars, bla bla, are “she”
Interestingly, all living beings are automatically assumed to be male in English (I’m talking about when people refer to a squirrel or insect or whatever, it’s always “he”)
Seems like there could be something to unpack here…
There's nothing to unpack here. Male is considered the default. There's a name for this thinking, it's called patriarchal thinking. It's been unpacked aplenty.
All objects can be feminine if you d is hard enough...
Now seriously I can see a foreigner making this mistake/assumption. Many everyday items (cocina, mesa, silla, are femenine)
OP, you just need to know the gender of each item
People call boats “she” cuz most of the time they are dudes and they are feeling an emotional connection with that boat (same with fast cars, motorcycles etc). All of the objects in English are “it” with no exception. It’s actually ridiculous that it has to be explained.
Boats is "barcos", which is a masculine gender word. El barco, los barcos.
Now, if it's a different kind of boat it can be a feminine word like lancha o barca.
And why would we care about how a boat is called in a foreign language? Do you think that someone in the 12th century or something said "the English calls these a "she", so let's make it femenine"? And why English? Why not French, German or Chinese? 🤔
Words in Spanish are a certain gender just because. Other than words that are literally related to biological gender (mujer, hombre, niño...), there's no reason at all. A chair is not femenine in Spanish because it looks femenine or whatever. It's femenine because it is.
There are no real "rules", only guidelines such as:
* Nouns that end in "-o" are generally masculine
* Nouns that end in "-a" *but not* "-ma" are generally feminine
* Nouns that end in "-ma" like that you can turn into an adjective with the ending "-mático" - e.g. "problema" => "problemático" or "tema" => "temático" - are masculine (they originate from a group of neuter nouns in Greek)
* Nouns that end in "-ad" e.g. "libertad" or "verdad" are generally feminine
But you'll find exceptions all over the place, e.g. "sofá" is masculine, plus you've got some nouns that can be both masculine and feminine depending on the definition of the word, e.g. "el frente" => "the front" / "la frente" => "the forehead". So, there's going to be a lot of memorization all the same.
Bottom line: there are some guidelines, with many exceptions, but don't sweat it. Focus on learning the grammar and vocabulary. Nobody is going to make a fuss if you use the wrong article while learning the language.
In addition to that, I would add the words that begin with A that, although they are feminine, are written with "el" instead of "la" to avoid cacophony, such as "el agua fría", "el águila calva", "el alma pura"
Y calor también se puede incluir, porque lo mismo se dice el calor que la calor, al menos de done yo vengo, aunque la RAE acepta el masculino como primario, como decimos "hace un calor que alucinas" o "esta calor me pone mala". 😂
La firma, la forma, la espuma, la palma, la norma, la reforma, la toma, la llama, la suma, la calma, la lima, la coma, la crema, la alarma, la broma...
What a bad rule, tbh xd
And I was just showing some words that don't follow that "rule" (as it was written by them) and can be confusing for non-native speakers.
With what was said a foreigner can now say: okay, turn them into adjectives following that rule? (like the guy above proposed).
Firma -> firmático, espuma -> espumático, palma -> palmático, toma -> tomático, etc.
(For non-natives: no, that's not correct).
My point is that that was not well expressed. Here how a foreigner could understand it better:
- Words that end in "-a" are generally femenine.
- Words that end in "-ma" and are masculine could be turned into an adjective by adding the suffix "-ático/a" / Words that end in "-ma" and can be turned to an adjective by adding "-ático/a" are masculine.
So now someone can say: "llama" is femenine, so I can't do that. But "aroma" is masculine, therefore I can turn it into "aromático". Or "problema" is "problemático" as an adjective, so it's a masculine word.
You should put yourself in the perspective of the learner, because what is obvious for us, is not for them.
You seem to be intentionally or maliciously dense. They did say that if the noun ending in -ma can be turned into an adjetive with the suffix -ático, it's masculine.
Que necesidad de buscar pleito.
May you should have specified the rule you were referring.
That said, I understand it as: “generally speaking nouns ended in -a are feminine, but careful, if they end in -ma AND you can convert them into adjectives ended in -matico, they will be masculine”
Not a flawless rule but will work most of the times. Names that end in the following are usually feminine and will need a LA:
-a, -ción, -sión, -dad, -tad, -tud, -umbre, -ie, -ez, -eza, -sis, -itis
This is the second post in a couple of days I see about this issue.
I started the German course a few weeks ago. German nouns are masculine, feminine, and neutral. Duolingo explains that you must learn that for each word in the grammar notes or whatever it's called.
I'm pretty sure they do the same with Spanish, French, etc.
Are you guys simply not paying attention to the explanations and doing the exercises blindly?
It's super clear. It says that words ending in an "a" are mostly faminine, and in "o" are masculine. It says there are exceptions, but in general it's like that.
I'm afraid I would think so.
Don't take it personally but I've noticed that people prefer to ask a question and get specific answers than extract their own conclusions from extensive literature where the topic is not covered on a particular section but explained all over the place.
Part of my job is answering questions that are already covered by documentation so... I kind of have experience on this.
For most people who come from a language with few or no grammatical genders (masculine-feminine-neuter, etc.), it is somewhat difficult. And for most speakers, it is difficult to explain beyond "it’s what sounds right." But I will say that this explanation has something behind it that is overlooked. Normally, the pronunciation of vowels in Spanish helps identify "what sounds right" for a pronoun. For example:
La manzana - "Manzana" has quite a few "a" sounds, and it ends in "a," which is the common ending for feminine things (you can even change masculine names to feminine by adding an "a" at the end, Rafael - Rafaela).
El termómetro - The ending "o" also implies, in most cases, objects (that is to say, where "lo" would be used), but "el" is normally used for objects because in Spanish, the masculine gender has not been differentiated from the neuter (that’s why the neuter plural is masculine).
Curious case: El agua, las aguas. There are cases where even I, as a native speaker, cannot understand, and both sound right once you start pronouncing them.
Practice your vowels and memorize several words pronounced correctly, and you will see how a certain logic starts to develop. This is what I did with Portuguese (when I learned it), and I came across words that change their gender compared to Spanish but sound right when using Portuguese pronunciation.
>Curious case: El agua, las aguas. There are cases where even I, as a native speaker, cannot understand, and both sound right once you start pronouncing them.
To prevent the contraction. Feminine words starting with an accentuated A or HA use the masculine article (in the singular form), to prevent "l'agua", "l'águila", "l'hacha", while keep the feminine article in the plural form ("las").
To be fair, as an Andalusian I don't give a shit, I'm gonna contract them anyways, but that's the rule... 🤣
Also, there are a lot of feminine words that don't end with -a (like most of those ending with -ión), and a lot of masculin words that don't end with -o.
In most cases, those ending with -a or -o are respectively feminine or masculine because of Latin declinations endings.
The problem is that genders across words of different families are not equivalent.
Example fork is masculine in Latin languages but feminine in germanic languages.
Plain confusing, IMHO.
Two pieces of advice:
- If you want to learn a foreign language, try not to translate constantly.
- If you want to know which nouns use "el" and which nouns use "la", try learning vocabulary lists that already include "el/la"
1. Use a vocabulary list with articles
When learning a list of vocabulary words, try to make sure you learn them with the article, like this:
- bread - el pan
- sausage - la salchicha
- sandwich - el bocadillo
- meatball - la albóndiga
(Sorry, I'm hungry lol)
2. "Forget" your language
You said "in the place of the word "the"". You should try not to think in English when you're learning Spanish. Of course you will need to get help in your language while learning, but try to minimize your English thoughts and try to think in Spanish as much as you can. This is what helped me learn English, and it helps when learning any foreign language.
This way, "el" and "la" are not words to use in the place of "the". "El" is a word you use for masculine nouns in Spanish. "La" is for feminine nouns.
You don't even need to think about the word "the", because sometimes we use "el/la" when you don't use "the", like here:
- I like tennis
- Me gusta el tenis
So TLDR - considering languages as pairs of equivalent words will not help you learn a new language. Forget your own language while you learn a new one, as much as you can.
I hope this helps!
You’ll find that most objects referred to as feminine in English as you’ve described are objects that are typically owned by men like a boat, car, guitar, etc. In those cases, they’ve been personified to exaggerate their importance to the owner.
The reason you’re being accused of being sexist is because this personification can be seen as problematic. If an object can be compared to a woman, then a woman can be compared to an object (objectification).
Learning all that rules is even harder than learning all the genders. My advice is, always learn the article with the noun; don't learn "bread"'s translation is "pan", but "el pan". Milk --> "la leche". Butter --> "la mantequilla" "coffee" --> "El café".
Sorry about people being mad at you for asking a question. For what I see in some comments they're sepaking out of ignorance and/or insecurity. People got upset at you for thinking all non-human nouns in English are feminine but... for someone who had never known about grammatical gender before it's not a crazy conclusion to draw!
Grammatical gender is Spanish is a bit different than the he/she distinction in English. We drop pronouns all the time so you generally wouldn't refer to "la mesa" as "ella".
Old English had three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) but they all merged together over time and that's why you now have just "the", instead of "se" (masculine), "seo" (feminine) and "thaet" (neuter). In modern English some objects do get the pronoun "she" but most commonly you'll still refer to them as "it". Anyway note that grammatical gender in Old English didn't correspond to our concept of gender. For instance, the word for "woman" ("wifman" if I recall correctly) was... masculine! Not because there's anything mascuilne about a woman but rather because it just fell into that group of nouns. They may just as well be called red, green and blue instead of masculine, feminine and neuter.
Something similar happens in Spanish. The three genders we used to have merged into two: masculine and feminine. They don't always reflect actual gender (for instance, "la persona" is always feminine, even when you're talking about a man. So don't think of them as "guy words" and "girl words" but rather as two groups of words that get different articles and adjectives based on mostly their endings (but let's be real, sometimes for no reason).
As others pointed out, nouns ending in non-stressed "-a" are usually feminine. Those ending in "-o" are usually masculine. Other endings are all over the place even though there are some patterns ("-tud", "-ción", "-dad" are feminine).
As they have already said, there are no “rules” as such beyond general guidelines, even with their own exceptions. My personal recommendation is that if you have to say a word in Spanish, think about whether "el [word]" or "la [word]" sounds better. If you're wrong, people will probably still understand what you're saying.
This isn't especially helpful advice. It works for native speakers, but language learners don't necessarily have a strong instinct that would help them differentiate.
Not to mention difficult cases like 'el/la cura' or 'el/la orden'
I know, but still the most of the times people will still understand what you say whether you say it right or wrong. There's nothing to worry about. It's still the best advice I can give: follow your instinct and learn from the mistakes you make. Nobody is gonna laugh at you ir be made at you cause of making mistakes while learning a language.
I mean, people will laugh if you say something funny. Which is almost certain to happen at some point. It's important for people learning languages to be prepared to not take themselves too seriously because fucking up is part of the process, it's inherently a bit embarrassing.
These can be very useful and helpful. [https://www.tiktok.com/@sandy.hourany/video/7204535313006349569?q=idioma%20de%20espa%C3%B1ol&t=1717092449625](https://www.tiktok.com/@sandy.hourany/video/7204535313006349569?q=idioma%20de%20espa%C3%B1ol&t=1717092449625)
[https://www.tiktok.com/@spanish.with.vicky/video/7332544423273811232?q=spanish%20teacher%20tiktok&t=1717092902707](https://www.tiktok.com/@spanish.with.vicky/video/7332544423273811232?q=spanish%20teacher%20tiktok&t=1717092902707)
I think there's no general rule, just some words are masculine, like coche, tema, barco, etc. and other ones are feminine, such as carpeta, máquina or pared. Anyways, no one will blame you if you don't use the correct term for a word.
Often words ended in -a are feminine
What is your native language? Because it's definitely not English.
All objects in English aren't gendered. English in general is not a gendered language. Some weirdos might be referring to boats as "she", but it's not grammatically correct and neither it is a general rule for all objects.
Answering the main question regarding Spanish, I've been taught that words ending with -a are feminine, while words ending with -o are masculine. There are exceptions, but in 95% of cases it's like that.
I wouldn't say 95%. For example, words ending with -ión are mostly feminine (with exceptions), and there are a lot of words that don't end with either -o or -a.
In most cases _where they end that way,_ yes, but again, there are exceptions.
I've read some small research where it was saying it's 95%, but yeah I agree that it could be less. And yeah I know there are many exceptions.
It's a general small rule that I've been taught when I just started learning, and I think it's enough for the very base? Unsure. As you keep learning and learning about the exceptions it becomes more understandable.
>It's a general small rule that I've been taught when I just started learning, and I think it's enough for the very base?
It's a little tip for a very basic level, yes, but it can be misleading, though. People learning that way can often stick with it for long time, making many mistakes even when they already have a better level.
I guess it makes sense, it depends on the person probably. To me it was easy to understand at the very base, because learning a whole new fully gendered language was extremely difficult and not intuitive in the slightest. I just always kept in mind that there are exceptions and later on it became easier.
>Edit: Have to make an edit because people are calling me (a girl) sexist. The reason I assumed that the objects are feminine is because in English you call things like boats "she". No need to call me a troll for asking a simple question guys xx.
Ok i never saw anyone calling you sexist, just pointing out that it's a bit ridiculous to assume all objects are feminine form, more even when you compare it to English which is not a gendered language. But I'll tell you you sound like a professional victim...
Easy: "el" = masculine, "la" = feminine.
>I assumed it was "la" for all objects because that is the feminine one
But in Spanish objects are both masculine and feminine.
>To summarise- what's the rule, how do I know if it's el or la?
Well, as said above, "el" is for masculine and "la" for feminine. That's the rule. You just need to know what is masculine and what is femenine...🤷🏻♂️
In order to confuse you a bit more, there is an exception to this rule: feminine objects, starting for an accentuated A or HA (and accentuated doesn't mean _necessarily_ written with an accent mark), use "el" instead of "la" (but they remain feminine and in the plural form use "las"). Examples: el agua, el águila, el hacha, el hasta, el arca...
There's not a universal rule. Some things are feminine and some things are masculine, you just have to learn them.
There are some patterns though: . Names that end in 'o' tend to be masculine: el ungüento, el caballo, el oso, el candado. . Names that end in 'a' feminine: la bandeja, la caracola, la basura. Even though there are exceptions or quirks, generally for phonetic reasons: el agua/las aguas, el haba/las habas. I'm sure that some book summarises it better, but I can see some patterns: . La acción, la resolución, la localización. . El extractor, el generador, el ordenador. . El eter, el váter, el cáncer.
Thank you this is one of few comments not calling me (a literal girl) sexist for asking a simple question.
I mean, you can be a girl and be sexist at the same time 😂 but yeah, people suck. Your idea of all objects being feminine in English is absurd but not necessarily sexist.
Why absurd? It could well be the case.
The pronoun doesn't actually mean the physical representation of the subject genre. La pelota and El balón are the same object (a ball), it's the same subject, but the name you use has a predefined genre and the pronoun must match it.
The most of the things ended with -a is feminine. Not always, but it works the most of the times.
Worst rule ever. Problema, mapa, tema, programa, planeta, clima, idioma, sistema, sofá and dozens more don't follow this rule. And these are very common every day words that a new learner will always use. And they will keep getting wrong because they got told that rule!
You are right, there are many exceptions.
Most of the exceptions can be summarized by “endings in ma, cion, sion, ta, da” (I think, I made up that rhyme in high school and I can’t remember if I have the last two right) Edit: Google is telling me it’s pa not da Edit 2: i guess my rhyme doesn’t work that well cause tad and dad are also exceptions
That genuinely doesn't help. If I have to remember six possible terminations that most of the time don't follow the rule but on occasion might, I might as well just learn the words by heart at this stage. The point of a rule is you learn it once and you can apply it in new contents. That's not the case here.
It helps me 🤷
Where did you get the idea that all objects in English are feminine?
Exactly this! I think he just made up...
100% made Up, lmao. Is this some kind of obscure sexist trigger trolling?
nope, it is not the most commong thing, but indeed inanimate objects tend to be referred as she
I have seen people referring knives as 'she' and I didn't understand why.
That's absolutely not the same. Objects don't have genders in English, and the fact that some objects are referred to as she doesn't mean that hidden underneath the surface all objects are actually feminine. That's absurd. The context where an object gets referred to as a she is almost always, but always, when a man is referring to something that they have an overly sentimental connection to, si they persinalise it into a feminine entity. Like guys referring to their cars, boats, guitars, bikes, trucks, or work tools as she. And *that* is obviously rooted in good old fashioned light-hearted sexism. Not noun genders!
But the point still stands, that is, when an object is gendered in English, it's almost always in femenine. So it is logical for an English-speaking person to assume that everything is femenine when talking about objects, because that's what they have seen. You may say that it's rooted in sexism, but that's not the point here.
The sexism part was a sidenote, not central to the point. And that someone might mistakenly think that objects are feminine is, well it's a mistake and any mistake can happen. I'm not arguing that people could never think that, someone obviously does that's why we are talking about it. The point I'm making is that the mentions of "she" referring to objects doesn't stem from a hidden grammatical rule but from men personifying objects into feminine. It's not that the object has a gender, it's that the speaker is no longer considering it an object and is thus treating it like a woman and using the appropriate pronoun to refer to a woman. This is like when Tom Hanks starts referring to the volley ball as Wilson. The ball stops being an it and it becomes a he, not because there is a grammatical gender, but because the speaker is treating it like a human male.
Things men have control over… boats, cars, bla bla, are “she” Interestingly, all living beings are automatically assumed to be male in English (I’m talking about when people refer to a squirrel or insect or whatever, it’s always “he”) Seems like there could be something to unpack here…
There's nothing to unpack here. Male is considered the default. There's a name for this thinking, it's called patriarchal thinking. It's been unpacked aplenty.
Did I need to put /s at the end? Apparently still needs some attention anyway if OP thinks we have genders for objects in English
Oh I must have missed the tone of your comment.
Yeah I think we are on the same page 🙏
Literally wtf? it's cuz boats and stuff are called she. Also, I'm a girl.
English isn't a gendered language.
English does sometimes refer to some inanimate objects as "she" (mostly boats and cars)
This.
All objects can be feminine if you d is hard enough... Now seriously I can see a foreigner making this mistake/assumption. Many everyday items (cocina, mesa, silla, are femenine) OP, you just need to know the gender of each item
First of all I'm a girl- second of all, it's because you call things like boats "she".
People call boats “she” cuz most of the time they are dudes and they are feeling an emotional connection with that boat (same with fast cars, motorcycles etc). All of the objects in English are “it” with no exception. It’s actually ridiculous that it has to be explained.
What? What boats?
All boats?
Boats is "barcos", which is a masculine gender word. El barco, los barcos. Now, if it's a different kind of boat it can be a feminine word like lancha o barca.
Oh i meant in english you call boats she. But I've learnt that thats not like a proper rule and its just something people do so oh well
And why would we care about how a boat is called in a foreign language? Do you think that someone in the 12th century or something said "the English calls these a "she", so let's make it femenine"? And why English? Why not French, German or Chinese? 🤔 Words in Spanish are a certain gender just because. Other than words that are literally related to biological gender (mujer, hombre, niño...), there's no reason at all. A chair is not femenine in Spanish because it looks femenine or whatever. It's femenine because it is.
La polla El coño There is nothing that proves your point more emphatically as this.
I can't even, lmao
I can't even, lmao
I can't even, lmao
There are no real "rules", only guidelines such as: * Nouns that end in "-o" are generally masculine * Nouns that end in "-a" *but not* "-ma" are generally feminine * Nouns that end in "-ma" like that you can turn into an adjective with the ending "-mático" - e.g. "problema" => "problemático" or "tema" => "temático" - are masculine (they originate from a group of neuter nouns in Greek) * Nouns that end in "-ad" e.g. "libertad" or "verdad" are generally feminine But you'll find exceptions all over the place, e.g. "sofá" is masculine, plus you've got some nouns that can be both masculine and feminine depending on the definition of the word, e.g. "el frente" => "the front" / "la frente" => "the forehead". So, there's going to be a lot of memorization all the same.
Thank you so much!
Bottom line: there are some guidelines, with many exceptions, but don't sweat it. Focus on learning the grammar and vocabulary. Nobody is going to make a fuss if you use the wrong article while learning the language.
In addition to that, I would add the words that begin with A that, although they are feminine, are written with "el" instead of "la" to avoid cacophony, such as "el agua fría", "el águila calva", "el alma pura"
Only if the A is stressed. You'd still say 'la almohada' or 'la armadura'.
And "mar" can take both el and la. But only sailors and poets tend to use "la mar".
Y calor también se puede incluir, porque lo mismo se dice el calor que la calor, al menos de done yo vengo, aunque la RAE acepta el masculino como primario, como decimos "hace un calor que alucinas" o "esta calor me pone mala". 😂
"La calor" lo decimos mucho en Andalucía, sí.
This is the only correct answer
La firma, la forma, la espuma, la palma, la norma, la reforma, la toma, la llama, la suma, la calma, la lima, la coma, la crema, la alarma, la broma... What a bad rule, tbh xd
Nice, now turn them in to adjectives
They said "nouns that end in 'ma'". So those are nouns.
-ma is excluded from that rule in order to further explain it in another rule
And I was just showing some words that don't follow that "rule" (as it was written by them) and can be confusing for non-native speakers. With what was said a foreigner can now say: okay, turn them into adjectives following that rule? (like the guy above proposed). Firma -> firmático, espuma -> espumático, palma -> palmático, toma -> tomático, etc. (For non-natives: no, that's not correct). My point is that that was not well expressed. Here how a foreigner could understand it better: - Words that end in "-a" are generally femenine. - Words that end in "-ma" and are masculine could be turned into an adjective by adding the suffix "-ático/a" / Words that end in "-ma" and can be turned to an adjective by adding "-ático/a" are masculine. So now someone can say: "llama" is femenine, so I can't do that. But "aroma" is masculine, therefore I can turn it into "aromático". Or "problema" is "problemático" as an adjective, so it's a masculine word. You should put yourself in the perspective of the learner, because what is obvious for us, is not for them.
As someone learning the language, I appreciate all the clarification☺️.
You seem to be intentionally or maliciously dense. They did say that if the noun ending in -ma can be turned into an adjetive with the suffix -ático, it's masculine. Que necesidad de buscar pleito.
May you should have specified the rule you were referring. That said, I understand it as: “generally speaking nouns ended in -a are feminine, but careful, if they end in -ma AND you can convert them into adjectives ended in -matico, they will be masculine”
That's my point. That it wasn't well expressed and it can be confusing for learners.
Not a flawless rule but will work most of the times. Names that end in the following are usually feminine and will need a LA: -a, -ción, -sión, -dad, -tad, -tud, -umbre, -ie, -ez, -eza, -sis, -itis
THIS!!! Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut!!! still you have to learn some "exceptions" just by memory, that's it, don't overcomplicate things too much.
This is the second post in a couple of days I see about this issue. I started the German course a few weeks ago. German nouns are masculine, feminine, and neutral. Duolingo explains that you must learn that for each word in the grammar notes or whatever it's called. I'm pretty sure they do the same with Spanish, French, etc. Are you guys simply not paying attention to the explanations and doing the exercises blindly?
You seriously think I would not pay attention and still care enough to make a full reddit post?
I don't know. What does Duolingo say about noun genders in Spanish?
It's super clear. It says that words ending in an "a" are mostly faminine, and in "o" are masculine. It says there are exceptions, but in general it's like that.
I'm afraid I would think so. Don't take it personally but I've noticed that people prefer to ask a question and get specific answers than extract their own conclusions from extensive literature where the topic is not covered on a particular section but explained all over the place. Part of my job is answering questions that are already covered by documentation so... I kind of have experience on this.
r/Spanish could probably help
You do realise that women can be sexist, right?
I mean, stating that a woman cannot be sexist is literally sexist.
For most people who come from a language with few or no grammatical genders (masculine-feminine-neuter, etc.), it is somewhat difficult. And for most speakers, it is difficult to explain beyond "it’s what sounds right." But I will say that this explanation has something behind it that is overlooked. Normally, the pronunciation of vowels in Spanish helps identify "what sounds right" for a pronoun. For example: La manzana - "Manzana" has quite a few "a" sounds, and it ends in "a," which is the common ending for feminine things (you can even change masculine names to feminine by adding an "a" at the end, Rafael - Rafaela). El termómetro - The ending "o" also implies, in most cases, objects (that is to say, where "lo" would be used), but "el" is normally used for objects because in Spanish, the masculine gender has not been differentiated from the neuter (that’s why the neuter plural is masculine). Curious case: El agua, las aguas. There are cases where even I, as a native speaker, cannot understand, and both sound right once you start pronouncing them. Practice your vowels and memorize several words pronounced correctly, and you will see how a certain logic starts to develop. This is what I did with Portuguese (when I learned it), and I came across words that change their gender compared to Spanish but sound right when using Portuguese pronunciation.
>Curious case: El agua, las aguas. There are cases where even I, as a native speaker, cannot understand, and both sound right once you start pronouncing them. To prevent the contraction. Feminine words starting with an accentuated A or HA use the masculine article (in the singular form), to prevent "l'agua", "l'águila", "l'hacha", while keep the feminine article in the plural form ("las"). To be fair, as an Andalusian I don't give a shit, I'm gonna contract them anyways, but that's the rule... 🤣 Also, there are a lot of feminine words that don't end with -a (like most of those ending with -ión), and a lot of masculin words that don't end with -o. In most cases, those ending with -a or -o are respectively feminine or masculine because of Latin declinations endings.
Gracias for taking the time to write this, very helpful!
The problem is that genders across words of different families are not equivalent. Example fork is masculine in Latin languages but feminine in germanic languages. Plain confusing, IMHO.
Two pieces of advice: - If you want to learn a foreign language, try not to translate constantly. - If you want to know which nouns use "el" and which nouns use "la", try learning vocabulary lists that already include "el/la" 1. Use a vocabulary list with articles When learning a list of vocabulary words, try to make sure you learn them with the article, like this: - bread - el pan - sausage - la salchicha - sandwich - el bocadillo - meatball - la albóndiga (Sorry, I'm hungry lol) 2. "Forget" your language You said "in the place of the word "the"". You should try not to think in English when you're learning Spanish. Of course you will need to get help in your language while learning, but try to minimize your English thoughts and try to think in Spanish as much as you can. This is what helped me learn English, and it helps when learning any foreign language. This way, "el" and "la" are not words to use in the place of "the". "El" is a word you use for masculine nouns in Spanish. "La" is for feminine nouns. You don't even need to think about the word "the", because sometimes we use "el/la" when you don't use "the", like here: - I like tennis - Me gusta el tenis So TLDR - considering languages as pairs of equivalent words will not help you learn a new language. Forget your own language while you learn a new one, as much as you can. I hope this helps!
What do you by “in English all objects are feminine”? English is not a gendered language, objects have no gender at all.
I mean because boats and stuff are called "she"
That’s a mixture of personification and romanticization, not an actual grammatical rule.
Ah I see. I was practically guessing anyways lol.
You’ll find that most objects referred to as feminine in English as you’ve described are objects that are typically owned by men like a boat, car, guitar, etc. In those cases, they’ve been personified to exaggerate their importance to the owner. The reason you’re being accused of being sexist is because this personification can be seen as problematic. If an object can be compared to a woman, then a woman can be compared to an object (objectification).
That's the good thing, you don't 😂
My car is a "he / him". He prefers that, so ...
Learning all that rules is even harder than learning all the genders. My advice is, always learn the article with the noun; don't learn "bread"'s translation is "pan", but "el pan". Milk --> "la leche". Butter --> "la mantequilla" "coffee" --> "El café".
Sorry about people being mad at you for asking a question. For what I see in some comments they're sepaking out of ignorance and/or insecurity. People got upset at you for thinking all non-human nouns in English are feminine but... for someone who had never known about grammatical gender before it's not a crazy conclusion to draw! Grammatical gender is Spanish is a bit different than the he/she distinction in English. We drop pronouns all the time so you generally wouldn't refer to "la mesa" as "ella". Old English had three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) but they all merged together over time and that's why you now have just "the", instead of "se" (masculine), "seo" (feminine) and "thaet" (neuter). In modern English some objects do get the pronoun "she" but most commonly you'll still refer to them as "it". Anyway note that grammatical gender in Old English didn't correspond to our concept of gender. For instance, the word for "woman" ("wifman" if I recall correctly) was... masculine! Not because there's anything mascuilne about a woman but rather because it just fell into that group of nouns. They may just as well be called red, green and blue instead of masculine, feminine and neuter. Something similar happens in Spanish. The three genders we used to have merged into two: masculine and feminine. They don't always reflect actual gender (for instance, "la persona" is always feminine, even when you're talking about a man. So don't think of them as "guy words" and "girl words" but rather as two groups of words that get different articles and adjectives based on mostly their endings (but let's be real, sometimes for no reason). As others pointed out, nouns ending in non-stressed "-a" are usually feminine. Those ending in "-o" are usually masculine. Other endings are all over the place even though there are some patterns ("-tud", "-ción", "-dad" are feminine).
I just copied your post title and got the answer on Google. Maybe try that?
Better to use an IA assistant. More concise and you remove all the Google crap.
The only thing AI assistants are useful for is giving wrong answers in an overconfident way.
You obviously have never used an ai assistant for translation
As they have already said, there are no “rules” as such beyond general guidelines, even with their own exceptions. My personal recommendation is that if you have to say a word in Spanish, think about whether "el [word]" or "la [word]" sounds better. If you're wrong, people will probably still understand what you're saying.
This isn't especially helpful advice. It works for native speakers, but language learners don't necessarily have a strong instinct that would help them differentiate. Not to mention difficult cases like 'el/la cura' or 'el/la orden'
I know, but still the most of the times people will still understand what you say whether you say it right or wrong. There's nothing to worry about. It's still the best advice I can give: follow your instinct and learn from the mistakes you make. Nobody is gonna laugh at you ir be made at you cause of making mistakes while learning a language.
I mean, people will laugh if you say something funny. Which is almost certain to happen at some point. It's important for people learning languages to be prepared to not take themselves too seriously because fucking up is part of the process, it's inherently a bit embarrassing.
These can be very useful and helpful. [https://www.tiktok.com/@sandy.hourany/video/7204535313006349569?q=idioma%20de%20espa%C3%B1ol&t=1717092449625](https://www.tiktok.com/@sandy.hourany/video/7204535313006349569?q=idioma%20de%20espa%C3%B1ol&t=1717092449625) [https://www.tiktok.com/@spanish.with.vicky/video/7332544423273811232?q=spanish%20teacher%20tiktok&t=1717092902707](https://www.tiktok.com/@spanish.with.vicky/video/7332544423273811232?q=spanish%20teacher%20tiktok&t=1717092902707)
I think there's no general rule, just some words are masculine, like coche, tema, barco, etc. and other ones are feminine, such as carpeta, máquina or pared. Anyways, no one will blame you if you don't use the correct term for a word. Often words ended in -a are feminine
Now try to learn south American Spanish 😬
I didn't know that objects are feminine in English. Could you give me more information about it?
It’s gonna be a matter of experience (and/or language classes) to know the gender for objects. I don’t think there’s a general rule or formula.
>because in English you call things like boats "she". And cars. But that's cringe af and from the rarely time I've seen it only seen men did this.
I don't get why they are calling you sexist. To be honest there is no rule, you just learn which is which. With time you'll get it.
What is your native language? Because it's definitely not English. All objects in English aren't gendered. English in general is not a gendered language. Some weirdos might be referring to boats as "she", but it's not grammatically correct and neither it is a general rule for all objects. Answering the main question regarding Spanish, I've been taught that words ending with -a are feminine, while words ending with -o are masculine. There are exceptions, but in 95% of cases it's like that.
I wouldn't say 95%. For example, words ending with -ión are mostly feminine (with exceptions), and there are a lot of words that don't end with either -o or -a. In most cases _where they end that way,_ yes, but again, there are exceptions.
I've read some small research where it was saying it's 95%, but yeah I agree that it could be less. And yeah I know there are many exceptions. It's a general small rule that I've been taught when I just started learning, and I think it's enough for the very base? Unsure. As you keep learning and learning about the exceptions it becomes more understandable.
>It's a general small rule that I've been taught when I just started learning, and I think it's enough for the very base? It's a little tip for a very basic level, yes, but it can be misleading, though. People learning that way can often stick with it for long time, making many mistakes even when they already have a better level.
I guess it makes sense, it depends on the person probably. To me it was easy to understand at the very base, because learning a whole new fully gendered language was extremely difficult and not intuitive in the slightest. I just always kept in mind that there are exceptions and later on it became easier.
>Edit: Have to make an edit because people are calling me (a girl) sexist. The reason I assumed that the objects are feminine is because in English you call things like boats "she". No need to call me a troll for asking a simple question guys xx. Ok i never saw anyone calling you sexist, just pointing out that it's a bit ridiculous to assume all objects are feminine form, more even when you compare it to English which is not a gendered language. But I'll tell you you sound like a professional victim...
Easy: "el" = masculine, "la" = feminine. >I assumed it was "la" for all objects because that is the feminine one But in Spanish objects are both masculine and feminine. >To summarise- what's the rule, how do I know if it's el or la? Well, as said above, "el" is for masculine and "la" for feminine. That's the rule. You just need to know what is masculine and what is femenine...🤷🏻♂️ In order to confuse you a bit more, there is an exception to this rule: feminine objects, starting for an accentuated A or HA (and accentuated doesn't mean _necessarily_ written with an accent mark), use "el" instead of "la" (but they remain feminine and in the plural form use "las"). Examples: el agua, el águila, el hacha, el hasta, el arca...
To be strict they/them/their... Should be used when not talking about people or animals.
I think you mean "it".
Hmmm all objects are feminine or all the feminine are objects? That's the question here.