📘 Spanish Lesson 1: Nouns, Articles, and Adjectives

⚥ Gender of Nouns

In Spanish, every noun is either masculine or feminine. There is no neuter gender for objects.

📌 Rule 1 – Masculine nouns

📌 Rule 2 – Feminine nouns

Most ending in -a are feminine: la casa, la playa.
Endings -ción, -sión, -dad, -tad, -tud are feminine: la canción, la universidad.
A few -o words are feminine: la mano, la radio.

💡 Special: -ista and -nte

Nouns ending in -ista or -nte can be masculine or feminine – the article tells you the gender of the person.

Masculine	Feminine
el turista (male tourist)	la turista (female tourist)
el dependiente (male clerk)	la dependiente (female clerk)

The definite article agrees in gender and number with the noun.

	Singular	Plural
Masculine	el	los
Feminine	la	las

el amigo → the friend | la amiga → the (female) friend

	Singular (a/an)	Plural (some)
Masculine	un	unos
Feminine	una	unas

Examples: un jardín (a garden), una mujer (a woman), unos libros (some books), unas flores (some flowers).

How to form the plural

If the noun ends in a vowel → add -s.
el libro → los libros | la casa → las casas
If the noun ends in a consonant → add -es.
el animal → los animales | la mujer → las mujeres

Adjectives describe nouns. In Spanish, they must agree in gender and number with the noun, and they usually come after the noun.

📌 Rule for adjectives ending in -o

Masculine: el libro blanco (the white book)
Feminine: change -o to -a → la casa blanca (the white house)

📌 Adjectives not ending in -o

They have one form for both genders: el hombre fuerte / la mujer fuerte (strong man/woman).

📌 Plural of adjectives

Singular	Plural
el gato negro (the black cat)	los gatos negros
la lección fácil (the easy lesson)	las lecciones fáciles

✨ Golden rule – Always learn a new noun with its definite article (el or la). That way you never forget its gender.