This is great information! If you have studied Spanish you are painfully aware of this. Ready? Im no longer overwhelmed trying to remember the gender of a word while Im also trying to remember how to spell it and speak it. ), Lostentculos delcalamar gigante puede crecer hasta los 13 metros. Spanish uses the personalawhen the direct object of a sentence is a person: Cuido a mi hermana pequea. El mar / la mar. When we start learning a new language, there are a couple of topics that we normally learn during the first few lessons. ), Las serpientes usan sus colmillos para inyectar veneno. You should stick to the traditional form in formal writing, however. Is there a word or Phrase you would like to learn? You only need to addmachoandhembra as necessary in a sentence. Fluenz Fluenz Blog Learn Spanish Basic Spanish El or La? Ending in an a indicates that a person or. By the end of this article, a sentence like this: should not be a mystery for you. Watch the video below for further instruction. As you can probably tell, all words that end in -ista denote occupations or stances and such, just like the endings -ist and -yst in English: therapist, marxist, etc. You know that people and animals are masculine or feminine, but did you know that nouns in spanish have gender? What are the main themes of so long a letter? (You will never see a giraffe the same way again!). (Elephants fill their trunks with water and then pour it into their mouths. Final Note: In general, when referring to a species of animals, its best to stick with the article of the word thats already gendered. When you are starting out in Spanish knowing the gender of nouns is very difficult. HE is NOT a dizzy aficionado. We would say El mdicO, La mdicO. Some animals have different names for each sex. Words ending in -ed (if the stress falls on this syllable). (We have taken the dog to the vet. If you have the word for friend, it refers to a person correct? Little by little, and loads of practice is the best remedy. Masculine nouns that end with a (exceptions): Masculine nouns that end with d (exceptions): Masculine nouns that end with z (exceptions): In the previous paragraphs we have looked at guidelines related to the use of masculine and feminine nouns. The most common genders are called masculine and feminine, while some spanish pronouns are considered to have neutral gender.a few nouns are said to be of ambiguous gender, meaning that they are sometimes treated as masculine and sometimes as feminine. (Snakes have their skin covered in scales. They helped to simplify the rules a ton!! Did you know that murcilago (bat) is the only animal word in Spanish that contains all the vowels in its name without repeating them? Some animals have separate names for each sex, such as a cow being. Or that the giraffes species name is camelopardalis, which can be translated as cameleopard? This way, you can learn a lot while having fun! Yet if you are referring to a person or occupation this is what happens: LA espa = The spy (if the spy is a woman. (Seals have flippers instead of hands. For example, the word for giraffe, jirafa is feminine, and it can be used when referring to any giraffe, whether male or female. This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you Then, place them into sentences. There is nothing wrong with eating (bread), drinking (milk) or having a slice of (la leche). Aun typically has the meaning of including, even it is often translated in different ways. Required fields are marked *. So, you would have to establish if that friend is a male or a female to determine which article to use. For example, instead of just learning thatun elefante means an elephant, you could say: Los elefantes tienen la trompa larga. (Antennae are the main olfactory organs in ants. Picture the following sentence in your mind. That means if you want to speak about a male whale, for instance, or a female mosquito (although, why would you!? Is friends masculine or feminine in spanish? (I have to feed my cat.). Its the persons gender that will determine whether we use el or la. How do you know if its masculine or feminine in Spanish? Do you have a question about Spanish? Some people use hippopotamus as a male name or animal fornication because there is such a large number of them. ), Mientras ms oscuras son las manchas, ms vieja es la jirafa. (I have seen Juan in the park.). But remember that this only happens with pets! There are animals in Spanish that, just like in English, have only one name for both genders. This is why I have grouped the animals the way I didlearning them together already creates context! If you need to indicate the sex of an animal with a undifferentiated name, you can add the word macho for male or hembra for female: Note that macho and hembra, however, are traditionally considered to be either nouns or invariable adjectives. ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/gender-of-animals-3079265. Like all nouns, animal names are strictly masculine or feminine when they refer to the generic name of the species.
If you look at texts 30 years ago you would never find LA arquitectA, it would have been LA arquitectO. Replacing z with ces in nouns that end with z. This is very helpful! A zoo - un jardn zoolgico/un zoolgico/ un zoo. Have you ever heard that an elephants pregnancy lasts almost two years? The Grammar and Vocab of Animals in Spanish: Learn, Use, Repeat!
Se llama Cookie. [The pot calling the kettle black. Although in English there is no need to think about whether a pencil is a masculine or a feminine noun, it is important in Spanish because the adjectives (i. e. pretty, ugly, small, big) and articles (the equivalents of the in Spanish, such as: el, la, los and las) of a sentence must match the gender and number of nouns. Study them grouped like this, and you will be a step ahead when it comes time to actually use them in a sentence! We also participate in other affiliate advertising programs for products and services we believe in. (Lion claws are retractable. Within the Fluenz team, amongst us who Spanish is our first language we still have numerous discussions onwhether certain words are masculine or feminine.
), La jirafa tiene el cuello ms largo de todos los animales terrestres vivos. How to Pronounce Despacito Lyrics and Improve Your Spanish Pronunciation, Spanish Crossword Puzzles for Learners: 11 Resources for All Levels, Learn Spanish Grammar and Vocabulary with These 12 Catchy Songs, 27 Superb Sites for Spanish Listening Practice to Amp Up Your Skills, The 22 Best Spanish Learning Websites for Language Mastery, The Complete Guide to the Intermediate Spanish Level: Courses, Tips and Inspiration. ), Have a look at this list again and try to find a pattern, any pattern. The names don't have to be so similar: a cow is una vaca, while a bull is un toro, even though they refer to the same species of animal. As in these examples, it is common, although not universal, for animals with sex-differentiated names in Spanish to have differentiated names in English as well. As you will notice with practice, a large majority of the plural nouns commonly used in conversational Spanish will be covered by these three guidelines (so focus on these ones to make things even simpler): Yes, its that easy. (About half the dogs are left-pawed, i.e. So, what happens with animals? However, to work this word into conversation, you need to know the gender of the noun. Thank you the tips. All Rights Reserved. (Turtles are famous for their shells.
At the beginning of the post I promised you that by the end, you would be able to understand the following sentence: I bet you know what this means now! el pato"duck",la pata"feet (of an animal), paws". To know if a noun is masculine or feminine, you should look to see what letter(s) the word ends with, Summary about the gender of nouns: Nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine. (Elephants have long trunks.). But you can really offend people that way. Animals that are not pets do not take the personala. In spanish, the word for animal is. Share it in the comments section so I can help. For example if you saylos leonesyoull be saying lions as a species, whereas if you saylas leonas youre referring only to the lionesses. You can practice your listening skills using your phone during the day. All spanish nouns ( sustantivos ), including people, places, animals, things, ideas, and feelings, have a gender (male or female). (Kangaroos have very short arms. The "default" gender in Spanish is usually the masculine. We now have the grammar stuff behind us and we have learned a lot of different animal names. Cuando tienes un problema debes coger el toro por los cuernos.
