1.0.- Gender of nouns in Spanish: Introduction

VIDEO TIMELINE:

In this introductory section we talk about:

• Min 01:15 = The two Golden Rules for the Spanish gender of nouns.
• Min 06:29 = The difference between the “natural gender” and the “grammatical gender”.
• Min 09:47 = The 3 possible situations that an English speaker will have to deal with
  • the easy words
  • contradictory genders
  • inanimate objects
• Min 13:44 = How the gender of a noun is the result of the history and the evolution of the language.
• Min 14:50 = How to use the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy when we want to know the gender of any noun.
• Min 17:46 = The following notions: the phrase, the head of a phrase and the noun phrase.

CONTENT:

One of the first obstacles that an English-speaking person finds when learning Spanish is the way we use nouns.
There is a big difference in the way we use nouns in English and Spanish and it will require a change of perspective, a different way of thinking so that you can get the hang of it.

THE GOLDEN RULES:

Before we start this first lesson, the most important ideas that you need to learn are these two Golden Rules (I call them The Golden Rules, but it’s not any official name, it’s just something that I think is very, very important…and I also think that this is a very cool name):

We’ll talk about the “noun phrase” later, but what I mean is that the name determines the spelling of the words that are related to it. If there is an adjective or an article, it takes the gender (and the number) of the noun. The noun is the boss, the most important word and the other ones have to adapt.

And now, let’s go in depth into these two golden rules:

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER ONE:

OK, let’s split these sentences and expand on their meanings:

This is probably one of the first things that you are going to learn about Spanish nouns. It could seem difficult but, actually, it is not.

Let’s see how to master this notion.

Nouns are used to denote a person, animal, place, thing or idea.

In English, living creatures can be either male or female, and inanimate things are usually neuter.
These categories talk about the real-life referent of nouns but, in a grammatical sense, there’s not a big difference in the way we use them, all nouns behave the same way and that makes English an easier language to learn.
You don’t have to worry about the gender of nouns when you are writing a sentence, everything works easily.
There is a reason for that.

So, IN ENGLISH, people and animals have a biological sex but, in a grammatical sense, all nouns are used in the same way. There is a natural gender (the one of the person or the animal) but not a grammatical gender (the one of the word within the sentence).

IN SPANISH, however, things are a little more complicated because all nouns have a masculine or a feminine gender, even when we talk about inanimate objects.

When we talk about people or animals, it’s easy to know whether they are masculine or feminine. But English speakers have never had to consider, for example, whether a table is masculine or feminine. And, since things don’t divide into sexes the way humans and animals do, there are no physical clues to help you guess their gender in Spanish.

The fact that inanimate objects have a gender in Spanish does not mean that things like tables or books are physically feminine or masculine. It is not a case of personification or animation, it’s just grammar. They have genders in a grammatical sense and must be used with articles and adjectives that match their gender.

That’s because English uses “natural gender” and Spanish uses “grammatical gender”. Let’s see what these two notions are:

Natural gender:

Natural gender is the correspondence between the gender of a noun and that of the real-world referent to which it names.

The nouns of animate entities with a biological sex like “man” or “woman”, “bull” or “cow”, take the masculine or feminine gender according to the sex of their real-life referent.
Inanimate entities like “bottle”, “pen” or “box” take the neuter gender.

That’s why “man” is a masculine noun and his pronouns are “he” or “him”; “woman” is a feminine noun and her pronouns are “she” or “her”; and “book” is a neuter noun and its pronouns are “it” in both cases (as a subject and as an object).

There is an exception though, the metaphorical gender:
When we break the rule of the Natural Gender and use the pronoun “she” for talking about a car or a ship, we are subverting the natural gender, this is called metaphorical gender.

Metaphorical gender is used for poetic effect in order to personify objects or show strong emotional involvement with them.
This can be applied to vehicles (like ships, cars or trains), computers, tools, nations or the planet Earth.

So, natural gender talks about the natural world, the real world, but when we are using the English language, when we are in the grammatical world, so to speak, masculine, feminine and neuter nouns behave the same way.

We can say:

A smart man
A smart woman
A smart dog
A smart TV

The adjective “smart” is always the same, it doesn’t change, it doesn’t have a specific form for the masculine or the feminine, and it makes English an easier language to learn.

Grammatical gender:

Many modern languages, such as German and the Romance languages (like Spanish or French), employ grammatical gender. Until the 1200s, English had grammatical gender too, but it disappeared.

Grammatical gender is a classification system by which each noun is assigned masculine, feminine or neuter gender regardless of whether the noun has a biological sex or not in the real world.

Grammatical gender is used for grammatical purposes only, regardless of the gender of the noun in the natural world or even if that noun has a gender because it works for inanimate entities too.

So, in Spanish we can find 3 possible situations that an English speaker will have to deal with:

Case 1, the easy words:

Let’s take the words “caballo” (“horse”) and “yegua” (“mare”).
In this example, everything is easy to understand, everything works easily for the English-speaking person because in the real world a “horse” is a male, a “mare” is a female and the equivalent nouns in Spanish, “caballo” and “yegua”) are also masculine and feminine respectively.
So, in this case there is no problem.

Case 2, contradictory genders:

Let’s take a more difficult word like “estrella” (“star”). In this example we are talking about a masculine actor, a big movie star like Paul Newman.

In the real world this person is a masculine movie star, a man, a masculine human being. But in Spanish, the word “estrella” is a feminine noun even when it refers to a masculine human being. So, every time we use the word “estrella” we have to keep this in mind and all the adjectives that accompany this word have to be in the feminine form.

Is that even possible? Even when we are talking about a man? Well…yes, it is because we are making a very clear distinction: on the one hand we have the real world, the natural world, in which this “movie star” is a man, a masculine human being. And, on the other hand we have the grammatical world, the world of the words in which “estrella” is a feminine noun and we can say something like:

In this sentence, the word “estrella” is a feminine noun, and the other words like “una” or “reconocida” have to take the feminine form even when we talk about a man because the word “estrella” is a feminine noun and they have to adapt to it.
In this grammatical world we have to play by these rules and that is why you are going to need a change of perspective. It won’t be easy but you will get used to it.

Case 3, inanimate objects:

It’s easy to know that a “bull” is a masculine noun and a “cow” is a feminine noun. But what about a phone, a book or an apple? Do they have a gender too? In Spanish, yes, they do.
Here is where we apply the second sentence of this first golden rule:

When we are talking about inanimate objects, we apply the grammatical gender rules too, versus the natural gender rules.

IN ENGLISH, inanimate entities don’t have a masculine or a feminine nature, they are just things and have a neuter gender, but, as we can read in the third sentence of this golden rule: There is no neuter gender in Spanish, so inanimate objects acquire either the masculine or the feminine gender.

Really? Yes, they do!

IN SPANISH, for instance, a phone (teléfono) is masculine, a book (libro) is also masculine and an apple (manzana) is feminine.

Who makes that decision?
Who decides the gender of an inanimate object?

It’s the result of the natural evolution of the language.

There are a lot of reasons that lead a noun to be masculine or feminine. Keep in mind that Spanish comes from Classical Latin and has been heavily influenced by the Ancient Greek and the Arabic language.

So, words are very influenced by their origin, and they have also evolved a lot until they have come to be part of the modern Spanish vocabulary.
Therefore, we can say that the gender of a noun is the result of the history and the evolution of the language.

And it’s also something that cannot be changed. What I mean is: the gender of a noun is given to you as a fact, as a feature of that noun. Whenever you learn a new noun in Spanish you will have to learn its gender as well.

Where can we check the gender of Spanish nouns
in case of any doubt?

It’s easy: In the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.

The Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española) is Spain’s official royal institution, whose mission is to ensure the stability of the Spanish language.
It was founded in Madrid in 1773.

This institution does not actually dictate the rules, but it studies the language, collects information and presents recommendations to the whole world in books like the New Spanish Grammar, the Spanish Orthography Book or the Spanish Language Dictionary.

The academy does not authorize or prohibit anything. It makes recommendations that we follow because of the great prestige of this institution.

The Spanish Language Dictionary is a very useful tool because you can see the meaning of every word and also the gender of every noun.
The official website is https://www.rae.es/.

Here we have a lot of useful information, including an online dictionary.

If we look for the term “zapato” (shoe), we can see the letter M before every definition. That means that this is a masculine noun.
If we look for the term “mesa” (table), we can see the letter F before every definition. That means that this is a feminine noun.
You can use the dictionary in the case of any doubt, this way you will be able to learn the meaning and the gender of every noun.

But you will not have a dictionary within reach all the time, so in the next sections of this first lesson I will teach you the general rules of how to identify the gender of almost any word.

Anyway, here’s a spoiler: there are a lot of rules and exceptions that you will learn, but memorization and frequent practice will be the most helpful tools for you to learn the gender of any noun.

So far, we have studied thoroughly the meaning of the Golden Rule Number one, let’s go to the Golden Rule Number Two:

GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 2:

OK, let’s expand on the meaning of this sentence:

What is the “noun phrase”? And what is a “phrase”?

The phrase:

“A phrase is a small group of words standing together as a conceptual unit, typically forming a component of a clause”.

Another possible definition is:

“A phrase is any group of words, or sometimes a single word, which plays a particular role within the grammatical structure of a sentence”.

Let’s see an example:

In the sentence “My little sister goes to school every day”, we can see two phrases:
“My little sister” is a noun phrase that functions as the subject of the sentence.
“goes to school every day” is a verb phrase that functions as the predicate of the sentence.

In Spanish:

“Mi hermana pequeña va al colegio todos los días”.
“Mi hermana pequeña” is a noun phrase that functions as the subject of the sentence.
“va al colegio todos los días” is a verb phrase that functions as the predicate of the sentence.

The head word of a phrase:

In grammatical analysis, most phrases contain a key word that identifies the type and linguistic features of the phrase; this is known as the head-word, or the head.
In a “noun phrase”, the head-word is a noun.
In a “verb phrase”, the head-word is a verb.

Let’s see it in our previous examples:
In “My little sister goes to school every day”: “sister” is the head of the noun phrase and “goes” is the head of the verb phrase.

In the Spanish sentence “Mi hermana pequeña va al colegio todos los días”, “hermana” is the head of the noun phrase and “va” is the head of the verb phrase.

In this lesson we are going to focus on the “noun phrase”.

The noun phrase:

A noun phrase or nominal phrase is a word or group of words that has a noun as its head and functions in a sentence as subject, object, or prepositional object.

A noun phrase consists of a noun or pronoun, which is called the head, and any dependent words before or after the head. Dependent words give specific information about the head.

Let’s see it in our previous examples:

In “My little sister goes to school every day”: “My little sister” is the noun phrase.

In the Spanish sentence, “Mi hermana pequeña va al colegio todos los días”: “Mi hermana pequeña” is the noun phrase.

So, this is what we mean when we say, in the second Golden Rule:
“In Spanish the noun is the head of the noun phrase”.

Now, let’s see the second part of this second Golden Rule:
«(the noun) determines the spelling of the other words in the phrase«.

In English, a noun is simply a noun, you don’t have to worry about the relationship of the noun with the rest of the phrase.

You can say “a Spanish man” or “a Spanish woman”. The adjective, “Spanish”, is always the same. You don’t have to worry about the gender of the noun or the adjective.

You can even use the plural form “some Spanish men” or “some Spanish women”.
The adjective “Spanish” remains the same.

A Spanish man.
A Spanish woman.
Some Spanish men.
Some Spanish women.

But in Spanish, however, every noun has a gender, and that gender “determines the spelling of the other words in the phrase”. Articles and adjectives need to match the gender and number of the noun they are connected to.

If the noun is in the masculine form, you have to use the masculine form of that adjective (like in “un hombre español”). The noun, “hombre” is a masculine singular noun so we have to use the masculine singular form of the adjective “español”.

And if the name is in the feminine form, you have to use the feminine form of that adjective (like in “una mujer española”). The noun, “mujer” is a feminine singular noun so we have to use the feminine singular form of the adjective “española”.

Un hombre español.
Una mujer española.

The gender of the noun determines the form of the other words that refer to it.

The name is the head, the leader, the boss and the other words in the phrase have to adapt.
It also applies to the plural. Adjectives, articles and the rest of the words of the noun phrase also take the number (singular or plural) of the noun.

That’s why we say “unos hombres españoles” or “unas mujeres españolas”. “Españoles” and “Españolas” take the gender and the number of the nouns that they refer to.

Unos hombres españoles.
Unas mujeres españolas.

Very well, and now let’s summarize what we have learned in this introduction.

SUMMARY:

In this first lesson, the most important ideas that you need to learn are the two golden rules:

We have also learned:

• The difference between the “natural gender” and the “grammatical gender”.
• The 3 possible situations that an English speaker will have to deal with:
  • the easy words
  • contradictory genders
  • inanimate objects
• How the gender of a noun is the result of the history and the evolution of the language.
• How to use the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy when we want to know the gender of any noun.
• The following notions: the phrase, the head of a phrase and the noun phrase

And now I’m going to tell you the points that we are going to discuss in the next sections of this first lesson:

In this first lesson we talk about “THE GENDER OF NOUNS IN SPANISH”.
We are going to study:

1. The gender of nouns in Spanish.
   1. Differences between gender of nouns in Spanish and English
   2. How to identify the gender in any word
   3. The rules for gender in the Spanish nouns
2. Masculine nouns and their endings in Spanish.
3. Feminine nouns and their endings in Spanish.
4. Forming the feminine form of a noun.
5. Other concepts to consider for the gender of nouns.

And this is the end of this introduction.
Thank you for watching!
I’ll see you in the next video!

Lesson 1: gender of nouns in Spanish

1.0.- Gender of nouns in Spanish: Introduction
1.1.- Gender of nouns in Spanish
1.2.- Masculine nouns and their endings in Spanish
1.3.- Feminine nouns and their endings in Spanish
1.4.- Forming the feminine nouns in Spanish
1.5.- Lesson 01 Evaluation Test