Masculine and Feminine in Spanish: What You Need to Know About Spanish Gender

Every noun in Spanish is either masculine or feminine. To use them properly, you need to know which nouns belong to which gender and a few other things—like how to make adjectives and quantities agree with the gender.

Today, you’ll learn everything you need to know about the Spanish masculino (masculine) and feminino (feminine).

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Masculine Nouns in Spanish

You can tell which gender a noun is by looking at the Spanish articles el (masculine) or la (feminine). Have a look at the following masculine nouns:

Spanish	English
el perro	The dog
el hombre	The man
el vaso	The glass
el libro	The book
el detergente	The detergent
el escritorio	The desk
el espejo	The mirror
el ventilador	The fan
el lunes	Monday
el rubí	The ruby

Most nouns that end in –o are masculine and most that end in –a are feminine. But some masculine nouns also end in -e, -r and -í. The easiest way to remember if a noun is masculine or not is to learn each noun with its article.

Here are some examples of masculine nouns that end in -a:

Spanish	English
el día	The day
el mapa	The map
el aroma	The aroma, the scent
el problema	The problem
el diploma	The diploma
el fantasma	The ghost
el enigma	The enigma
el planeta	The planet
el tema	The topic
el idioma	The language

Feminine Nouns in Spanish

Here are some common feminine nouns:

Spanish	English
la cama	The bed
la foca	The seal
la piedra	The stone
la mesa	The table
la silla	The chair
la ciudad	The city
la mitad	The half
la canción	The song
la profesión	The profession
la vida	The life
la gente	The people
la mujer	The woman
la parte	The part
la noche	The night
la vez	The time, the occasion

Feminine nouns usually end in -a. But as you can see, not always. There are even feminine words that end in the traditionally masculine ending -o:

Spanish	English
la mano	The hand
la radio	The radio
la moto	The motorbike
la foto	The photograph
la libido	The libido

You can easily remember that two of these words are feminine because they’re shorter versions of words that end in -a:

la moto → la motocicleta

la foto → la fotografía

Finally, nouns ending in -ción/-sión and -dad/tad are always feminine. For example:

Spanish	English
la institución	The institution
la prisión	The prison
la reflexión	The reflection, the thinking
la cantidad	The quantity
la universidad	The university
la lealtad	The loyalty

How to Use Adjectives and Quantity with Spanish Gender

An adjective has to represent both the gender of the noun it’s describing and its quantity. This usually means the ending of the adjective will change slightly.

For example:

El perro blanco (the white dog)

La rosa blanca (the white rose)

When an adjective ends in a letter like -e, their endings don’t change according to gender.

Here are a few examples:

El árbol verde (the green tree)

La chica inteligente (the intelligent girl)

El zapato grande (the big shoe)

And this same rule applies if the adjective ends in a consonant.

For example:

La niña emocional (the emotional girl)

El niño emocional (the emotional boy)

El perro gris (the gray dog)

If you haven’t learned much about adjectives yet, you can check out this list of the most common 50 here:

How to Use Pluralization with Spanish Gender

Pluralizing nouns is one of the easiest things to do in Spanish. You just have to add a few s’s.

Let’s look at our examples “the white rose” and “the white dog” again.

If you want to make them plural, all you have to do is make the articles, nouns and adjective plural by adding s on the end of them:

La rosa blanca → Las rosas blancas

El perro blanco → Los perros blancos

But here’s an exception: if the noun ends in a consonant, instead of adding an –s, you add –es. For example:

El trabajador (the worker) → Los trabajadores  (the workers)

El profesor (the professor) → Los profesores  (the professors)

La ciudad (the city) → Las ciudades  (the cities)

To learn more about the Spanish plural, check out this guide:

How to Use Pronouns with Spanish Gender

If you have a masculine noun, the direct object pronoun is lo. For example:

Perdí el billete. (I lost the ticket.) → Lo perdí.  (I lost it.)

For a feminine noun, the direct object pronoun that’ll replace it is la:

Perdí la bolsa. (I lost the bag.) → La perdí.  (I lost it.)

And pretty much the same thing goes for plural nouns, except instead of lo and la, we use los and las.

Escribí los documentos. (I wrote the documents.) → Los escribí.  (I wrote them.)

Cosí las faldas. (I sewed the skirts.) → Las cosí.  (I sewed them.)

If you want to learn more about how Spanish pronouns work, we have a guide for that, too:

Tips for Learning Spanish Gender Rules

Although no rules are set in stone when it comes to guessing the gender of nouns in Spanish, there are a few tips to make it easier.

• Use the month/day/compound rule. This trick is easy to remember: all months of the year, days of the week and compound nouns are masculine in Spanish.
• Learn new nouns together with their articles. If you learn every new noun with its corresponding article, you won’t have to deal with this issue in the future.
• Immerse yourself in Spanish. This will undoubtedly have you recalling everything more quickly and naturally. Just be sure to find materials that are not too difficult and are of good quality. FluentU, for example, has thousands of Spanish videos you can sort by difficulty level and topics.

  FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

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  Spanish podcasts are also excellent resources for immersive learning since many have written transcripts.
• Use adjectives to help you remember. Try to learn nouns together with an adjective. This will double your chances of remembering the correct gender because you can remember what adjective you used, revealing the gender.
• Remember the mnemonic LONERS. Tons of Spanish nouns ending in -l, -o, -n, -e, -r and -s tend to be masculine. However, remember there are several exceptions to this rule (la cal — the lime, la mano — the hand, etc.).

Resources for Practicing the Masculine and Feminine in Spanish

Let’s leave the theory behind and practice a little. The following six resources include a ton of exercises on Spanish gender.

• SpanishDict. Here you have a 40-question quiz on masculine and feminine Spanish words. It includes brief grammar explanations for each word, even if you answer the questions correctly.
• StudySpanish. This is a cute, short test with four exercises. You can review your answers after you submit them and correct your mistakes thanks to the hints they give you.
• E-Spanyol. Try to guess the gender of 100 Spanish nouns!
• Spanish To Learn Free. Practice Spanish gender to perfection with 26 fantastic exercises.
• Quizlet. Quizlet is famous for its user-friendly flashcards and all you can do with them (from learning new words to practicing writing and listening comprehension). The deck I’ve linked here includes 63 flashcards to practice Spanish gender.

Spanish Masculine and Feminine Quiz

Fill in the correct article for each noun and check your answers below.

1. ____ mano de la estatua es delicada y hermosa. (The statue’s hand is delicate and beautiful.)

2. ____ libro está sobre la mesa. (The book is on the table.)

3. ____ mapa del país es muy detallado. (The map of the country is very detailed.)

4. No me gusta ____ foto que tomaste. (I don’t like the picture you took.)

5. ____ carro nuevo es muy rápido. (The new car is very fast.)

6. ____ canción que escuchamos es hermosa. (The song we heard is beautiful.)

7. ____ día está soleado y perfecto para la playa. (The day is sunny and perfect for the beach.)

8. ____ moto de mi amigo es bastante rápida. (My friend’s motorcycle is very fast.)

9. ____ problema es más complicado de lo que parece. (The problem is more complicated than it seems.)

10. ____ cama es muy cómoda. (The bed is very comfortable.)

 

Answer key:

1. La (feminine)

2. El (masculine)

3. El (masculine)

4. La (feminine)

5. El (masculine)

6. La (feminine)

7. El (masculine)

8. La (feminine)

9. El (masculine)

10. La (feminine)

 

¿Lo tienes? (Got it?)

Pat yourself on the back for making it to the end!

Hopefully, the tips for remembering and learning Spanish gender will help you make things easier. And when in doubt, you can always come back to this post and reread it.