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In Spanish, adjectives agree with what they refer to in terms of both plurality (singular/plural) and grammatical gender (masculine/feminine). For example, taza (cup) is feminine, so "the red cup" is la taza roj a , but vaso (glass) is masculine, so "the red glass" is el vaso roj o .
Every Spanish noun has a specific gender, either masculine or feminine, in the context of a sentence. Generally, nouns referring to males or male animals are masculine, while those referring to females are feminine. [1] [2] In terms of importance, the masculine gender is the default or unmarked, while the feminine gender is marked or distinct. [2]
Spanish nouns belong to either the masculine or the feminine grammatical gender. [1] [2] [3] Gender, in this case, refers to a grammatical system and is not necessarily connected with biological sex or gender. [2] For example, la mesa 'table' is feminine despite there being nothing inherently feminine about tables.
When nouns deviate from the rules for gender, there is usually an etymological explanation: problema ("problem") is masculine in Spanish because it was derived from a Greek noun of the neuter gender, whereas foto ("photo") and radio ("broadcast signal") are feminine because they are clippings of fotografía and radiodifusión respectively, both ...
The usually-masculine form el is used instead of la before feminine nouns that begin with a stressed a (or rarely, au) sound (as well as, in principle, ai although such words are almost never found in practice): el águila (pequeña) = "the (small) eagle" el agua (fresca) = "the (fresh) water" el hacha (afilada) = "the (sharp) axe"
A common example are nouns ended in -aje in Spanish, which are masculine, and their Portuguese cognates ending in -agem, which are feminine. For example, Spanish el viaje 'the journey' (masculine, like French le voyage and Italian il viaggio) corresponds to the Portuguese feminine a viagem. Similarly, el puente 'bridge', el dolor 'pain', or el ...
Some Spanish-speaking people advocate for the use of the pronouns elle (singular) and elles (plural). [14] Spanish often uses -a and -o for gender agreement in adjectives corresponding with feminine and masculine nouns, respectively; in order to agree with a gender neutral or non-binary noun, it is suggested to use the suffix -e.
Un servidor, este servidor or simply servidor for the masculine gender and una servidora, esta servidora, servidora for the feminine are nouns meaning "servant" but used with the singular third-person verb as a polite, distancing, or humorous first-person pronoun, e.g. ¿Quién es el siguiente? - ¡Servidor!