CSG201

Unit 17

Nouns and Articles

Gender of \oiins in Spanish: Endings of \oiins

Nouns (los sustantivos) designate people, places, actions, things, events, concrete or abstract ideas, and so on. In Spanish, nouns are either feminine or masculine, grammatically speaking. Sometimes this classification will not make sense to the English-speaking learner of Spanish. La mesa (table) is not viewed as an object with a “feminine” naturę, but as an inanimate object that is feminine because the ending (la terminación) in -a is an indication of gram-matical gender: most nouns that end in -a are feminine in Spanish.

In Spanish, there are some generał rules, which are not absolute, about the gender of nouns. In the examples that follow, the masculine article el and the feminine article la are placed before the nouns to indicate the gender. El and la are equivalent to the En-glish definite article the.

Masculine \oims and Their Endings in Spanish

The generał rule States that all nouns in Spanish are sustantivos masculinos or sustantivos femeninos. The gender is associated with specific word endings. The following endings generally indicate the masculine gender:

• Nouns that designate małe beings generally (but not always) end

in -o.

el cartero mailman, mail carrier (m.) el generał    generał (military) (rn.)

el hombre    man el profesor (małe) professor or teacher

• Most nouns ending in -o referring to animals, things, or ideas are masculine.

el queso    cheese

el zapato    shoe

el ano    year

el caballo    horse

el catalogo    catalogue

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