"

Unit 2: Basics

2.1 Gender of Nouns and Definite and Indefinite Articles

All nouns in Spanish are masculine or feminine in gender. * (A very small number can be both.) Masculine nouns are generally preceded by the masculine definite article corresponding to English “the” or indefinite article corresponding to English “a” or “an” in the singular, “some” or “a few” in the plural. Feminine nouns follow the same pattern.

Masculine

Feminine

definite article

el libro – the book la clase – the class

indefinite article

un libro – a book una clase – a class

definite article

los libros – the books las clases – the classes

indefinite article

unos libros – some (a few) books unas clases – some (a few) classes

Most nouns ending in -o are masculine, and most ending in -a are feminine, though exceptions exist. Gender of nouns, in any case, does not present comprehension problems or translation difficulties.

*Some nouns and pronouns are neuter in gender. You will see these later in the text.

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Spanish for Reading and Translation Copyright © by Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.