Spanish nouns (II) – Patterns to watch out for

As explained in the previous blog post, words that end in –o are classed as masculine and words that end in –a are feminine. What about words ending in other letters? Although this is more tricky because they can be either masculine or feminine. there are patterns to watch out for. If you can remember them, you can quickly work out if a word is masculine or feminine. Here are the main patterns to watch out for:

Words ending in “–dad” are feminine:

la ciudad – city
la suciedad – dirtiness

Words ending in “–tad” or “-tud” are feminine:

la libertad – freedom
la actitud – attitude

Words ending in “–ción” or “–sión” are feminine:

la estación – station
la televisión – television
la operación – operation

Words ending in “–umbre” are feminine:

la costumbre – custom
la muchedumbre – crowd
la incertidumbre – uncertainty

Words ending in “–án”, “-or”, “-amber” or “–aje” are masculine:

el afán – effort/ambition
el amor – love
el hambre – hunger
el garaje – garage

Tips:

• Days of the week are all masculine: el lunes, el martes, el miércoles, el jueves, el viernes, el sábado, el domingo
• Languages are all masculine: el inglés, el español, el francés, el italiano, el alemán.
• Numbers are all masculine: Hoy es el cinco de julio.
• Colours are masculine when used as a noun: Su color favorito es el azul.