Nouns and Articles

¡Hola classe!
Spanish user nombres (nouns) to talk about people, places and things just as English does, except for one big difference: ALL SPANISH NOUNS HAVE A GENDER (masculine or feminine).

GENDER - Identify if a noun is masculine of feminine

In Spanish there are no neuter gender, you have to deal with gender - whether the noun is masculine of feminine. It is easy when you have nouns that describe people, such as madre (mother) and tío (uncle), but what happens when you're talking about non-person-related nouns, like casa (house) silla (chair).There are a few rules that you can use to determine the gender of the majority of Spanish nouns.

MASCULINE

• The majority of masculine nouns end in -o. 
• año (year)
• queso (cheese)
• hijo (son)
• Nouns that end in -aje and -ambre are also masculine
• salvaje (savage)
• lenguage (language)
• calambre (cramp)
• Aditional nouns groups that are masculine: days of the week, months of the year, names of langages, name of rivers, seas and oceans.

FEMININE

• The majority of masculine nouns end in -a. 
• silla (chair)
• mesa (table)
• montaña (mountain)
• A group of names that end in -dad and -tad
• amistad (friedship)
• ciudad (city)
• realidad (reality)
• Group of nouns that end in -eza, -ie , -itis and -sis are feminine
• tristeza (sadness)
• serie (series)
• bonquitis (bronchitis)
• crisis (crisis)

NUMBER - Pluralizing Nouns

Basic rules to transform singular nouns in plural.

• If a noun ends in a vowel, add -s.
• casa - casas    (house)
• cine - cines     (cinema)
• menú - menús (menu)
• If a noun ends in a consonant, add -es.
• color - colores  (color)
• papel - papales (paper)
• ciudad - ciudades (city)
• If a noun ends in -z, change the -z to -c and add -es.
• luz - luces (light)
• pez - peces (fish)

ARTICLES

English and Spanish both use definite and indefinite artículos (articles) to modify their nouns. The article must agree with the noun both in number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine or feminine).

• Definite - getting specific. Refer to specific or definite person, place or thing, english uses only the article the, Spanish has four forms:
• el (masculine, singular). Eg. el estudiante (the student)
• la (feminine, singular). Eg. la casa (the house)
• los (masculine, plural). Eg. los colores (the colors)
• las (feminine, plural). Eg. las ciudades (the cities)
• Indefinite - generalizing. When you're talking about people, places or things that aren't specific. In English you has three indefinite articles: a or an (singular) and some (plural), Spanish has four:
• un (masculine, singular). Eg. un vestido (a dress)
• una (feminine, singular). Eg. una blusa (a shirt)
• unos (masculine, plural). Eg. unos vestidos (some dresses)
• unas (feminine, plural). Eg. unas blusas (some shirts)

¡Muchas Gracias!