Nouns: Gender and Plurals

Every Spanish noun carries a grammatical gender: it is either masculine or feminine. This is not about biology. A table (la mesa) is feminine and a book (el libro) is masculine simply because Spanish assigns them that way.

Gender matters because the words around the noun must agree with it. The article and any adjective change their ending to match:

Gender	Article + noun	With an adjective
Masculine	el libro (the book)	el libro rojo (the red book)
Feminine	la casa (the house)	la casa roja (the red house)

Because gender controls so much, the best habit is to learn every new noun with its article: not casa but la casa, not coche but el coche. Guessing the gender later is far harder than learning it once.

The most useful pattern covers a huge share of the vocabulary list: nouns ending in -o are usually masculine and nouns ending in -a are usually feminine.

Ending	Usual gender	Examples
-o	masculine	el libro, el bolígrafo, el dinero, el pueblo
-a	feminine	la mesa, la casa, la tienda, la palabra

Worked examples with the article and an adjective:

• el chico alto — the tall boy
• la chica alta — the tall girl
• un amigo español — a Spanish (male) friend
• una amiga española — a Spanish (female) friend

This rule is reliable enough to use as your default guess when you meet an unfamiliar noun. The next slides cover the endings and exceptions that override it.

Many nouns do not end in -o or -a, but their ending still signals the gender. These groups are worth memorising because they are extremely common in the exam.

Feminine endings:

Ending	Examples
-ción / -sión	la canción, la nación, la televisión
-dad / -tad	la ciudad, la universidad, la libertad
-tud	la juventud, la actitud

Masculine endings:

Ending	Examples
-or	el color, el amor, el profesor
-aje	el viaje, el paisaje, el equipaje
-ma (Greek origin)	el problema, el tema, el clima, el idioma

Nouns ending in -ista or -ante keep the same form for both genders; only the article changes: el/la artista, el/la estudiante, el/la turista.

Some everyday nouns break the -o/-a rule. Because they appear so often, examiners expect you to use the correct article and agreement. Learn this short list by heart:

Noun	Gender	Meaning
el día	masculine	day
el mapa	masculine	map
el problema	masculine	problem
el clima	masculine	climate
el sofá	masculine	sofa
la mano	feminine	hand
la foto	feminine	photo
la moto	feminine	motorbike

La foto and la moto are short for la fotografía and la motocicleta, so they keep the feminine gender of the full word.

Watch the agreement in a full sentence: un buen día (a good day) uses the masculine buen, not buena, because día is masculine despite the -a ending.

To talk about more than one thing, make the noun plural. Two core rules cover most nouns:

Singular ends in…	Add	Example
a vowel (a, e, i, o, u)	-s	casa → casas, coche → coches
a consonant	-es	profesor → profesores, ciudad → ciudades

The article becomes plural too: el libro → los libros, la mesa → las mesas.

Worked examples:

• el estudiante inteligente → los estudiantes inteligentes
• la ciudad grande → las ciudades grandes
• el papel → los papeles

Notice that the adjective also takes a plural ending, so every part of the phrase agrees in both gender and number.

Some plurals change more than just the ending. These are the patterns that trip students up.

Nouns ending in -z change to -ces:

Singular	Plural
el lápiz	los lápices
la vez	las veces
la luz	las luces

Written accents can appear or disappear. Adding -es shifts where the stress sits in the word, so the accent has to follow the rules:

Singular	Plural	What changed
la canción	las canciones	accent dropped
la nación	las naciones	accent dropped
el joven	los jóvenes	accent added
el examen	los exámenes	accent added

Nouns ending in an unstressed -s do not change at all; only the article shows the plural: el lunes → los lunes, el paraguas → los paraguas.

Spanish builds new words from a base word using suffixes, and recognising them helps you work out meaning in the Reading paper without a dictionary.

Suffix	Adds the sense of	Example
-ito / -ita	small, or affection ("little")	perro → perrito (little dog), casa → casita (little house)
-idad	makes an abstract noun, like English -ity	real → realidad (reality), feliz → felicidad (happiness)
-able	makes an adjective, like English -able	lavar → lavable (washable), evitar → evitable (avoidable)

A -ito/-ita word keeps the gender of its base noun (la casa → la casita), and words in -idad are always feminine (la ciudad, la universidad).

Two more high-frequency patterns are covered in their own lessons: -mente makes adverbs (rápida → rápidamente, see the adverbs lesson) and -ísimo means "very" (rico → riquísimo, see comparatives and superlatives).

1. Guessing gender from the English word

Gender belongs to the Spanish noun, not its meaning. El problema is masculine and la persona is feminine regardless of who it refers to. Always learn the noun with el or la.

2. Forgetting the -o/-a exceptions

El día, el mapa, el problema and la mano are the ones examiners test most. Writing la día or la problema is a clear agreement error.

3. Adding -s instead of -es after a consonant

Nouns ending in a consonant take -es: ciudad → ciudades, not ciudads. Only vowel endings take a plain -s.

4. Losing or adding the accent incorrectly

Canción loses its accent in the plural (canciones), while joven and examen gain one (jóvenes, exámenes). Say the word aloud to hear which syllable is stressed.

5. Not making the whole phrase agree

If the noun is plural and feminine, the article and the adjective must match: las casas blancas, never las casa blanca or los casas blancos.