Feminine and masculine in Spanish

Spanish is a relatively complex language, especially if your native language is English. Spanish verb tenses are complicated, and the gender of words is something that brings many students upside down.

Learning to differentiate the feminine and masculine in Spanish can be one of the most confusing and difficult tasks for some. So, in this guide you’ll be able to understand the gender in Spanish. Continue reading this article or switch to its Spanish or Italian version here.

Feminine and masculine words in Spanish

The 'normal' when you are starting to learn Spanish is to think that all masculine words end in -o and feminine words end in -a. Well, this rule may be valid for some words like perro/perra (dog), humano/humana (human) or hermano/hermana (brother/sister). But what about others like inteligente (smart), bola (ball) or (caballo) horse?

Here are some examples of Spanish words that do not follow the general rule of masculine -o and feminine -a.

The place where you walk is the suelo (floor), but suela (sole) is the lowest part of the shoe, the one that touches the ground. Therefore, the word suelo is masculine and has no feminine equivalent.

The velo (veil) is the cloth that covers the head, generally, of brides at weddings. Well, vela is not the feminine equivalent of this word. In fact, it has no feminine equivalent, although the word vela does exist and is a polysemous word, that is, it has several meanings. The vela can be a piece of wax with a wick used for lighting (candle) or the cloth that helps to push boats in the wind (sail).

Surely you know what a caballo (horse) is, but what is the feminine of this animal in Spanish? The female of the horse is the yegua (mare). And you should not confuse it with caballa, which is a word that does exist in Spanish, but has a different meaning. Caballa (mackerel) is a very popular type of fish in Spain.

The part of the body in Spanish that ends in the hand is called the brazo (arm). But braza has nothing to do with the human body. Braza (fathom) is equivalent to almost two meters (about 6 feet) and is used to delimit marine measures of length.

Summer in Spain is very hot, so it is good to have a granizado, which is a drink made with ice chips. Oppositely, if a granizada (hailstorm) comes, it is better to take shelter, since it is a meteorological phenomenon in which pieces of ice fall mixed with rain.

The last example is the word bolso (handbag or purse). Bolso is an object made of cloth or other material that is slung over the shoulder and is used to carry objects. But if you carry a bolsa (bag), what you have is a small cloth or plastic sack that you hold by the handle with your hand and use for shopping.

Special rules for feminine and masculine in Spanish

The general rule says that in Spanish nouns ending in -o are masculine (el dinero, el libro, el bolígrafo, etc.), while nouns ending in -a (la casa, la mesa, la rosa, etc.) are feminine. However, there are some exceptions that contradict this rule.

There are words that, despite ending in -a, are masculine. Examples: día (day), mapa (map), planeta (planet), programa (program) or sofa (sofa). And several words ending in -ema, esquema, poema, problema, sistema or tema, which are also masculine. Similarly, there are nouns ending in -o that are feminine: radio, mano, foto or moto.

Besides the ending in -o and -a, there are other endings that you should also be aware of because they have a specific gender:

• Nouns ending in -aje and -or are almost always masculine: el paisaje, el viaje, el color, el amor..., but there are exceptions: las flores is a feminine term.
• Alternatively, nouns are feminine if they end in -ción, -sión, -dad and -tad. For example: la canción (song), la relación (relationship), la excepción (expression), la mansión (mansion), la ciudad (city), la verdad (truth), la libertad (freedom), la amistad (friendship), etc.
• On the other hand, there are other nouns, regardless of the gender of the person, that have only one form. These nouns end in -ista and -ante: el/la artista, el/la dentista, el/la estudiante, el/la cantante, etc. Therefore, there are no Spanish forms such as la estudianta or el artisto.

In addition, there are Spanish nouns that can be used for both feminine and masculine. Generally, they end in -ente: inteligente, obediente or paciente. But there are also other nouns such as: intérprete (interpreter), atleta (athlete), policía (police), piloto (pilot) or estudiante (student). These names are used for both genders: el atleta/la atleta; el piloto/la piloto; el intérprete/la intérprete.

Finally, as you have seen before, there are nouns that have different forms according to gender:

• el hombre (man) -> la mujer (woman)
• el padre (father) -> la madre (mother)
• el actor -> la actriz (actress)
• el emperador (emperor) -> la emperatriz (empress)
• el alcalde (mayor) -> la alcaldesa (mayoress)
• el caballo (horse) -> la yegua (mare)
• el toro (bull) -> la vaca (cow)
• el gallo (rooster) -> la gallina (hen)

After reading this guide, you can say that there are nouns in Spanish that have no equivalent in feminine and masculine, others that do exist, but with a different meaning if you change the final letter and some that use a completely different word to designate their opposite in gender.

The feminine and masculine in Spanish is very curious and varied: it has words of all kinds, changes that you don't expect and rules that are broken. So, if you want to keep improving, don't hesitate to take Spanish courses in Spain to have the best teachers to guide you during your adventure in the language.