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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.
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]
Many grammars of Spanish suggest that nouns ending in -a are feminine, [14] [15] but there is no requirement that Spanish nouns ending in -a be feminine. [10] Thus, grammars that pose such a requirement also typically include a long list of exceptions, such as el alerta 'alert', el bocata 'sandwich', el caza 'fighter plane', and many others.
Its a-is unstressed, but it usually takes el even when feminine. In addition, azúcar can be of both genders in Spanish (other words with double gender are sal (salt), mar (sea) and sartén (frying pan)): el azúcar refinada (el azúcar refinado and la azúcar refinada are also acceptable) Feminine el does not have the same origin as the ...
For example, taza (cup) is feminine, so "the red cup" is la taza roja, but vaso (glass) is masculine, so "the red glass" is el vaso rojo. In Spanish, it is perfectly normal to let an adjective stand in for a noun or pronoun—with (where people are involved) no implication of condescension or rudeness.
Orthographic solutions strive to include both the masculine and feminine endings in the word. Examples include hyphens (étudiant-e-s), middle dots (étudiant·e·s), [38] parentheses (étudiant(e)s), or capital letters (étudiantEs). The parentheses method is now often considered sexist, because parentheses are used to show something less ...
The contemporary colloquial diminutives -chen and -lein are always neuter in their grammatical gender, regardless of the original word. For example, the common German word for girl is das Mädchen, which is neuter because it is a diminutive of die Magd (feminine) – the maiden (Handmaid, maidservant, not: virgin). [6]
Some words are masculine in Spanish, but feminine in Portuguese, or vice versa. 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 ...