GC 5: Gender of Nouns• In Spanish, every noun has a gender: masculine or feminine.

• Nouns referring to people correspond to the person’s gender: el amigo vs. la amiga

• Nouns referring to objects also have gender; this has nothing to do with biological, sexual

gender: el libro vs. la pelicula

• Most masculine nouns end with –o; most feminine ones end with –a. If a noun ends with

something else (el lápiz, la clase), the gender must be memorized.

• Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. This means that the –o at

the end of the adjective must change to –a.

• If an adjective ends with –e (inteligente) or a consonant (intelectual), there is no gender

change. The exception is adjectives that end with –or (trabajador); add an –a if feminine.

• Additionally, all adjectives become plural when what they describe is plural. For this just

add –s (or –es if the last letter is a consonant).