Nouns

If you are unsure of what a noun is please read through the "Grammar Time" article below - scroll down the page or see blog archive to the right.

In Spanish all nouns are either masculine or feminine.  For example, la ciudad (the city) is feminine and el garaje (the garage) is masculine.  It is important that you know whether a noun is masculine or feminine in order to ensure other words in a sentence agree with the noun in terms of gender.

Because of this I find that it's best to learn a new noun along with its article (la or el - "the", more about articles later).

The majority of nouns used to name people or animals will depend on whether the person or animal is male or female.

Masculine nouns	Feminine nouns
el padre (the father)	la madre (the mother)
el niño (the boy)	la niña (the girl)
el ingeniero (the engineer - male	el ingeniero (the engineer - female)
el gato (the cat - male)	la gata (the cat - female)

Most nouns that name people or animals have a masculine and a feminine form (there are exceptions).  Commonly, the masculine is -o and the feminine is -a but there are other endings too.

Masculine form	Feminine form
Nouns that end in -o	Replace the -o with an -a	el secretario  → la secretaria (the secretary)
Nouns that end in -d, -l, -n, -r, -s, -z	add an -a to the masculine form to make the feminine form	el profesor → la profesora (the teacher).  The main exceptions are: el/la joven (the youth), el/la lider (the leader)
Nouns that end in -e	Sometimes the -e is replaced by an -a, sometimes the ending remains the same.	el jefe → la jefa,  el estudiante →la estudiante (the student) but note: el tigre→la tigresa (the tigress)
Nouns that end in -ón or  -ín	Change to -ona or -ina respectively	el campeón → la campeona (the champion): el bailarín → la bailarina (the ballet dancer)
Nouns that end in -í or -ú	Remain the same	el iraní → la iraní (the iranian) el hindú → la hindú (the hindu)

There are some other nouns that remain the same in the masculine and the feminine form.  Som enouns ending in -a (and particularly -ista) can be used to refer to either males or females:

• el/la artista (the artist) 
• el/la atleta (the athlete)
• el/la ciclista (the cyclist)
• el/la futbolista (the footballer)
• el/la policia (the police officer)
• el/la taxista (the taxi driver)
• el/la tenista (the tennis player)
• el/la turista (the tourist)

There are then the nouns that can be used for either males or females (thses generally only take one article - either masculine or feminine for example el personaje would be the same article even when referring to a female:

• el bebé (the baby)
• la persona (the person)
• la victima (the victim) 
• el personaje (the character)
• el genio (the genius)
• la estrella (TV/film star)
• el/la testigo (the witness)
• el/la modelo (the model)