Nouns

Nouns

Gender of Nouns

• In Spanish, nouns are either masculine or feminine. This is inherent to the noun and has no correlation with actual gender.
• The general rule is that nouns ending in ‘-o’ are masculine, while those ending in ‘-a’ are feminine. For example: el libro (the book, masculine), la manzana (the apple, feminine).
• There exceptions to this rule, such as la foto (the photo, which is short for la fotografía; despite ending in ‘-o’ this noun is feminine).
• Sometimes the gender of a noun can be changed by replacing the ending. For example: el niño (the boy) becomes la niña (the girl).

Number of Nouns

• Spanish nouns can be singular or plural.
• This is usually indicated by ‘-s’ or ‘-es’ at the end. For example: un libro (a book, singular), dos libros (two books, plural).
• The plural form also changes according to gender: un niño (a boy, singular), dos niños (two boys, plural); una niña (a girl, singular), dos niñas (two girls, plural).

Articles

• In Spanish, nouns are usually preceded by an article.
• Definite articles (the) are el (masculine singular), la (feminine singular), los (masculine plural), and las (feminine plural).
• Indefinite articles (a, some) are un (masculine singular), una (feminine singular), unos (masculine plural), and unas (feminine plural).

Possessive Nouns

• Possession is shown by placing the possessive adjective before the noun. For example: mi libro (my book).
• The possessive adjective must agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies, even if it does not match the possessor. For example: su libro can mean his book, her book, or your book.