Ch 2 · Lesson 16Spanish · Chapter 2 · Lesson 16 · Grammar primer
Gender by ending: la verdad, la canción, el día
-ción and -dad nouns are feminine, and a short card of exceptions breaks the -o and -a rule: , , .
The short version
Trust the -o/-a rule, then learn the card
,
Why?Hide
Nouns in -o are masculine and nouns in -a feminine well over nine times in ten, and -ción, -dad and -tud nouns are feminine. The exceptions fit on a card: , , , . Learn every noun with its article and the gender comes free.
The near-certain feminine endings
Four ending families are feminine with almost no exceptions.
| Ending | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| -ción, -sión | | television |
| -dad, -tad | | the city |
| -tud | | attitude |
| -umbre | | custom |
They matter because English -tion and -ty words map onto them again and again:
The famous exceptions
The genuinely irregular cases fit in one table. Learn it early and the rules become safe everywhere else.
| Spanish | English | Why it surprises |
|---|---|---|
| the day | -a, but masculine |
| the hand | -o, but feminine |
| the photo | short for |
| the motorbike | short for |
| the map | -a, but masculine |
| the planet | -a, but masculine |
| the sofa | -a, but masculine |
| the radio | short for radiodifusión |
the day
the hand
the map
the motorbike
the sofa
the photo
The short words keep the gender of the long word they were cut from. In much of Latin America the radio set is .
is the one that matters most, because you say it from day one. The adjective in the greeting is masculine to match:
Going further: What gender actually is and the rest of the guide, when you want them. This lesson does not need them.
Practice
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One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end.
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Lesson 16 of 50 in this chapter