Noun Gender Rules¶

Every Spanish noun is either masculine or feminine, and the gender determines which article the noun takes (el / un for masculine, la / una for feminine). Spanish doesn't have a "the" you can fall back on — you have to know the gender.

The good news: most nouns follow predictable rules based on their ending. The bad news: exceptions exist, and a few of them are extremely common.

This Study screen lays out the patterns so you can predict gender on first sight more often than not.

Default rules¶

Ending	Usually	Notes
-o	masculine	el libro, el queso, el dinero
-a	feminine	la casa, la mesa, la palabra
-ción / -sión	feminine	la canción, la decisión, la nación
-dad / -tad	feminine	la ciudad, la libertad, la verdad
-ma (from Greek)	masculine	el problema, el tema, el sistema
-ista	either, based on the person	el / la artista, el / la dentista
-or	masculine	el color, el calor — but la flor is an exception

Common exceptions worth memorising¶

A few high-frequency nouns break the -o / -a default and trip up beginners:

la mano — the hand (ends in -o, but feminine)
la radio — the radio (ends in -o, but feminine in most regions)
el día — the day (ends in -a, but masculine)
el mapa — the map (ends in -a, but masculine)
el agua — the water (feminine, but takes el in the singular for sound reasons; plural is las aguas, adjectives are still feminine)
el problema, el tema, el programa, el sistema, el clima — all the Greek -ma nouns

If you can keep this short list in your head, the -o / -a shortcut will be right more than 95% of the time.

When the rule isn't enough¶

For nouns where the ending doesn't decide the gender (mainly nouns ending in -e or in a consonant), you simply have to learn the article along with the word. LinguaMorpha always presents nouns with their article on the flashcard, so the gender is part of the unit you're memorising from the start.

For the small set of nouns whose meaning changes with the article, see Alternate Gender Explained.