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In languages with genders you need fewer unique words for gender-related concepts. For example English (genderless) has "boy" and "girl", while Spanish (male an

In languages with genders you need fewer unique words for gender-related concepts. For example English (genderless) has "boy" and "girl", while Spanish (male and female) has "niño" and "niña".

SamBam 6d ago
But that doesn't help you understand why "chair" might be feminine while "book" might be masculine.
- jventura 6d ago
  Not sure about spanish, but in portuguese, as a general rule, you decide the gender of an object by the last caracther. For instance “cadeira” (chair) is feminine while “livro” (book) is masculine. Basically, most feminine words end with an “a” while masculine words end with an “o”, although there are some words that end with other letters whose genders is not that easy to identify. For instance “árvore” (tree) ends with an “e” and is feminine (“a árvore”), while “peixe” (fish) also ends with an “e” but is masculine (“o peixe“).
  - dmd 6d ago
    Er, that sounds backwards to me. I thought you put the a on the word because it is feminine. You're saying the word is feminine because there's an a on it?
    - thaumasiotes 6d ago
      Strictly speaking there's no causality in either direction. A word's gender determines what it takes for other words to agree with it, while the form of the word itself can be anything. A word can always be irregular. But not every word can be irregular. Mostly the words that belong to a gender will match a set of patterns, and the words belonging to another gender will match a different set of patterns. If you're lucky, you can learn a word from some usage that makes its gender explicit (and for irregular words, this is the only way you can learn about their irregularity). But often all you have to go on is the word, and in that case, when you want to use it, you have to make a choice. You'll do that based on the form of the word. ----- If you want some examples of how gender irregularity in nouns works, here are a few different phenomena in Latin: - An adjective in the first/second declensions has masculine (singular) endings -us, -ī, -ō, -um, -ō, -e and feminine endings -a, -ae, -ae, -am, -ā, -a. If you see one of these endings, and you know the adjective is first/second declension¹, then you've fully specified the gender of the adjective. There are no exceptions. - First and second declension nouns mostly follow this pattern. Lana means wool and, as the -a suffix would lead you to expect, it's feminine. Campus means field as, as the -us suffix would lead you to expect, it's masculine. What this means is that "white wool" is lana alba and "a white field" is campus albus. - Trees are weird. They are second declension (or sometimes fourth; pretend that's not true), appearing to be masculine, but instead they're feminine. So you'd have pinus alba, a white pine tree, or quercus alba, a white oak tree. - There's a short list of profession terms that are first declension, appearing to be feminine, but that are nevertheless masculine. So it'd be agricola albus, a white farmer, or nauta albus, a white sailor. - What about corpus? Well, it's neuter. Corpus album, a white body. Corpus is a third declension noun, and the third declension works completely differently. The apparent -us ending is misleading; the root of this noun is actually corpor- and the suffixes, of course, belong to the third declension. - What do you do if you run into a word you don't know how to deal with? Pretend it's normal. Manus is a Latin word that means "hand"; it appears to be masculine, but it's feminine. It turns out that referring to hands is common enough that Spanish speakers today still remember that this masculine-looking word, now mano, is actually feminine. But we may compare Biblia, which is feminine in Spanish today despite the fact that in Latin it was neuter. It's feminine now because of that -a ending. ¹ That isn't actually true; the neuter suffixes are mostly just masculine suffixes except for one that is feminine. There are no distinctive second-declension neuter suffixes. But the suffixes by themselves are sufficient to distinguish masculine gender from feminine.
  - tremon 6d ago
    > “a árvore” I'm glad that Portuguese doesn't try to trip up foreigners on purpose here, like Spanish does with "el agua" (which is still a feminine word, but takes the masculine article because "la agua" is too hard to pronounce).
    - cwnyth 6d ago
      French does this too: "mon" is masculine, "ma" is feminine, "ami" is masculine (so "mon ami" is correct), "amie" is feminine, but you have to say "mon amie". Some things contract (like "n'est", "c'est", "l'homme"), but not "ma."
  - projektfu 6d ago
    Except words ending in "ma" that came from Greek (o problema, o estigma) which are masculine, while those from Latin (a alma) are feminine as expected. In Spanish it's basically the same. A Spanish teacher gave me a nice mnemonic: "-ma is masculine, like your mother." I've never forgotten that.
- mplanchard 6d ago
  This is often apparent from the sound or spelling of a word, rather than any genderedness in its concept. A chair is une chaise (feminine), and it would be weird for chaise to be masculine. It’s not because the chair is feminine, it’s because the word is. There are some rules that help you figure out the gender based on the word (often what sound the word ends with), but there are exceptions to those rules. Livre (book) is actually an example of where the gender creates a different meaning: un livre is a book, while une livre is a pound (the unit of weight).
- igsomething 6d ago
  On one hand I agree genders are pointless for chair and book. On the other hand, many nouns are the female or augmentative version of the base word. From your examples: "silla" (f, chair) vs "sillón" (m, sofa), and "libro" (m, book) vs "libreta" (f, notebook).
- srean 6d ago
  If you ever feel inclined to learn Hindi there is more to grapple with. The verb gender is sometimes set by the gender of the object, sometimes by the gender of the object. Which way this will go loosely depends on tense.

In languages with genders you need fewer unique words for gender-related concepts. For example English (genderless) has "boy" and "girl", while Spanish (male and female) has "niño" and "niña".

SamBam 6d ago

But that doesn't help you understand why "chair" might be feminine while "book" might be masculine.

jventura 6d ago
Not sure about spanish, but in portuguese, as a general rule, you decide the gender of an object by the last caracther. For instance “cadeira” (chair) is feminine while “livro” (book) is masculine. Basically, most feminine words end with an “a” while masculine words end with an “o”, although there are some words that end with other letters whose genders is not that easy to identify. For instance “árvore” (tree) ends with an “e” and is feminine (“a árvore”), while “peixe” (fish) also ends with an “e” but is masculine (“o peixe“).
- dmd 6d ago
  Er, that sounds backwards to me. I thought you put the a on the word because it is feminine. You're saying the word is feminine because there's an a on it?
  - thaumasiotes 6d ago
    Strictly speaking there's no causality in either direction. A word's gender determines what it takes for other words to agree with it, while the form of the word itself can be anything. A word can always be irregular. But not every word can be irregular. Mostly the words that belong to a gender will match a set of patterns, and the words belonging to another gender will match a different set of patterns. If you're lucky, you can learn a word from some usage that makes its gender explicit (and for irregular words, this is the only way you can learn about their irregularity). But often all you have to go on is the word, and in that case, when you want to use it, you have to make a choice. You'll do that based on the form of the word. ----- If you want some examples of how gender irregularity in nouns works, here are a few different phenomena in Latin: - An adjective in the first/second declensions has masculine (singular) endings -us, -ī, -ō, -um, -ō, -e and feminine endings -a, -ae, -ae, -am, -ā, -a. If you see one of these endings, and you know the adjective is first/second declension¹, then you've fully specified the gender of the adjective. There are no exceptions. - First and second declension nouns mostly follow this pattern. Lana means wool and, as the -a suffix would lead you to expect, it's feminine. Campus means field as, as the -us suffix would lead you to expect, it's masculine. What this means is that "white wool" is lana alba and "a white field" is campus albus. - Trees are weird. They are second declension (or sometimes fourth; pretend that's not true), appearing to be masculine, but instead they're feminine. So you'd have pinus alba, a white pine tree, or quercus alba, a white oak tree. - There's a short list of profession terms that are first declension, appearing to be feminine, but that are nevertheless masculine. So it'd be agricola albus, a white farmer, or nauta albus, a white sailor. - What about corpus? Well, it's neuter. Corpus album, a white body. Corpus is a third declension noun, and the third declension works completely differently. The apparent -us ending is misleading; the root of this noun is actually corpor- and the suffixes, of course, belong to the third declension. - What do you do if you run into a word you don't know how to deal with? Pretend it's normal. Manus is a Latin word that means "hand"; it appears to be masculine, but it's feminine. It turns out that referring to hands is common enough that Spanish speakers today still remember that this masculine-looking word, now mano, is actually feminine. But we may compare Biblia, which is feminine in Spanish today despite the fact that in Latin it was neuter. It's feminine now because of that -a ending. ¹ That isn't actually true; the neuter suffixes are mostly just masculine suffixes except for one that is feminine. There are no distinctive second-declension neuter suffixes. But the suffixes by themselves are sufficient to distinguish masculine gender from feminine.
- tremon 6d ago
  > “a árvore” I'm glad that Portuguese doesn't try to trip up foreigners on purpose here, like Spanish does with "el agua" (which is still a feminine word, but takes the masculine article because "la agua" is too hard to pronounce).
  - cwnyth 6d ago
    French does this too: "mon" is masculine, "ma" is feminine, "ami" is masculine (so "mon ami" is correct), "amie" is feminine, but you have to say "mon amie". Some things contract (like "n'est", "c'est", "l'homme"), but not "ma."
- projektfu 6d ago
  Except words ending in "ma" that came from Greek (o problema, o estigma) which are masculine, while those from Latin (a alma) are feminine as expected. In Spanish it's basically the same. A Spanish teacher gave me a nice mnemonic: "-ma is masculine, like your mother." I've never forgotten that.
mplanchard 6d ago
This is often apparent from the sound or spelling of a word, rather than any genderedness in its concept. A chair is une chaise (feminine), and it would be weird for chaise to be masculine. It’s not because the chair is feminine, it’s because the word is. There are some rules that help you figure out the gender based on the word (often what sound the word ends with), but there are exceptions to those rules. Livre (book) is actually an example of where the gender creates a different meaning: un livre is a book, while une livre is a pound (the unit of weight).
igsomething 6d ago
On one hand I agree genders are pointless for chair and book. On the other hand, many nouns are the female or augmentative version of the base word. From your examples: "silla" (f, chair) vs "sillón" (m, sofa), and "libro" (m, book) vs "libreta" (f, notebook).
srean 6d ago
If you ever feel inclined to learn Hindi there is more to grapple with. The verb gender is sometimes set by the gender of the object, sometimes by the gender of the object. Which way this will go loosely depends on tense.