El and la: Spanish noun gender

Every Spanish noun is either masculine or feminine, and the small word in front of it tells you which one. El goes with masculine nouns and la with feminine ones. That is why the game shows words as el libro or la ciudad, not just the bare noun.

Why it matters

Gender affects the words around a noun, such as adjectives and articles. Saying la problema instead of el problema is easy to understand, but it sounds wrong. The best way to avoid it is to learn each noun together with its article from the start.

Patterns that help

• Nouns ending in -o are usually masculine: el libro, el perro.
• Nouns ending in -a are usually feminine: la casa, la mesa.
• Endings -ción, -sión, -dad, -tad, and -tud are almost always feminine: la canción, la ciudad, la libertad.
• Endings -aje and -or are usually masculine: el viaje, el color, el amor.
• Words ending in -ma that come from Greek are usually masculine: el problema, el tema, el idioma, el programa.

Common exceptions

Some words break the pattern: el día and el mapa are masculine even though they end in -a, while la mano is feminine even though it ends in -o. A few words change meaning with gender: el capital is money, while la capital is a capital city. Also, a feminine noun that starts with a stressed “a” sound uses el in the singular, as in el agua (the water), but the plural is las aguas.

People and jobs

When a noun names a person, the article usually follows that person’s gender. The game has many pairs, such as el ingeniero and la ingeniera (engineer), el mentor and la mentora (mentor), and el árbitro and la árbitra (referee). Some words end in -ista or -ante and keep the same form for both: el artista and la artista, el estudiante and la estudiante. One game word to watch is la gente (people), which is feminine and singular even though it means a group.

Plurals

In the plural, el becomes los and la becomes las: los libros, las casas.

Un and una

The English “a” or “an” becomes un for masculine nouns and una for feminine nouns: un libro, una casa. The plural, meaning “some,” is unos and unas: unos libros, unas casas.

Adjectives match the noun

Adjectives change to agree with the noun’s gender and number: el libro blanco, la casa blanca, los libros blancos, las casas blancas. Adjectives that end in -e or a consonant use the same form for both genders: el coche grande, la casa grande, el examen fácil, la prueba fácil.

Al and del

Spanish squeezes two small words together when el follows a or de. A + el becomes al (Voy al mercado) and de + el becomes del (el libro del profesor). This never happens with la: Voy a la escuela.

More surprises

La foto (short for fotografía), la moto (short for motocicleta), and la radio are feminine even though they end in -o. On the other side, el planeta, el sofá, and el día are masculine. When a word surprises you, make a note of it and review that list often.

Tips

• Always write the article with the noun in your notes.
• Use two colors, one for el words and one for la words.
• When you learn a new noun, check whether it matches one of the patterns above.

Making gender automatic

Gender feels strange at first because English does not use it, but it becomes automatic with exposure. Each time you meet a noun, read the article and the noun as a single chunk, such as la mesa or el libro, instead of treating them as two separate words. After a few weeks of seeing and saying them together, the right article will start to sound correct and the wrong one will sound off, which is the same instinct native speakers rely on. For more on the small words that go with nouns, see Spanish articles.

Keep learning

Spanish verbs · Common mistakes · Full vocabulary list · All guides