Elma Eagles  

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Grammar Summary

Spanish 1 Unidad 1 Etapa 2

Gender of Spanish Nouns and the Words Modify Them

Nouns in Spanish have gender, either masculine or feminine.  The gender of a noun must be learned when you learn the noun, but usually:

    Nouns ending in o are masculine and nouns ending in a are feminine.  There are some other nouns that end in another vowel or consonant and those have to be learned.

When you are presented with a new noun in these lessons you are also given the "definite article"  (the word 'the")  that indicates in Spanish whether it is a masculine or feminine noun.  "Indefinite Articles" also indicate gender.   An indefinite article is the word "a" or "an" or "some" in English.

Adjectives also have gender.  An adjective is a word that describes a noun.  In the sentence  "I have a red car"  the word "car" is a noun and the word "red" is an adjective.  It describes the noun. 

Spanish adjectives must agree in number and gender with the noun they describe.   This means that a masculine singular noun must have a masculine singular adjective.   A plural feminine noun must have a plural feminine adjective, and so on.  Most adjectives are made masculine by the ending o, and are made feminine by the ending a.  Some adjectives end in e or a consonant (such as the letter "l" in  "fenomenal") and can describe either a masculine or feminine noun.  To make an adjective plural, just add an s if it ends with a vowel and es if it ends with a consonant.

Asking What Someone or Something is Like (physical description or personality description)

To ask what someone is like, use:   ¿Cómo + ser + noun?

    ¿Cómo es Paco?  ¿Cómo es Ana?  Answer:  Él es guapo y ella es bonita.