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I'm teaching Spanish (my native language) to my daughters and my wife, and I disagree. There are many, many nouns that don't mark the gender except in the accom
by candeira 9y ago
I'm teaching Spanish (my native language) to my daughters and my wife, and I disagree. There are many, many nouns that don't mark the gender except in the accompanying article or adjective.
- 3131s 9y agoAnd some that contradict the rule, i.e. 'agua' among other nouns in certain circumstances: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/agua#Usage_notes https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/agua#Usage_notes
- flatline 9y agoLots of little mnemonics, like man creates el problema, the woman la solution.
- chimeracoder 9y agoThose are both pretty easy, too, because they follow regular rules. "-ma" is always masculine. "-ión" is always feminine.
- ldv0107 9y agoActually, “rama” (branch), “cama” (bed), “mucama” (maid) are all femenine. “Centurión” (roman military rank) and “esturión” (fish) are masculine
- candeira 9y agoCorrect. "tema", "teorema" are masculine because they are cultisms, derived directly from greek. Same with "fantasma" and "miasma".
- singularity2001 9y agobad 'reason': problema is greek too ⲡⲣⲟⲃⲗⲏⲙⲁ 🇬🇷 problem
- candeira 9y agoAnd it's masculine too in Spanish. Isn't it in Greek?
- chimeracoder 9y ago"agua" doesn't break the rule. It's feminine. agua fría. However, there's another rule that words beginning with an a use el because of the double vowel sound.
- mtr 9y ago"Abuela"? "Azúcar" "Abuela"?
- candeira 9y agoThat's almost correct. It's not all words starting with 'a', but words staring with a _stressed_ 'a', like "águila", "aula" and "hacha" that use "el" as an article, despite being feminine words. The reason is analogous to the use of "an" in English instead of the article "a".
- WillPostForFood 9y agoThere may be exceptions, but noun gender is still vastly more consistent than French.