Gender in Spanish language words

Have you heard the expression “No problemo”? Well, this is actually incorrect. It’s a literal translation of what we want to say: No problem. Literal translations do not work with Spanish or any of the Romance languages.

The actual word in Spanish for problem is “problema”. There is no such word as “problemo”. This is a consequence of knowing the Spanish language words have an assigned gender, so in an effort of giving it a gender people add the “o”

All Spanish language nouns have gender: masculine or feminine. Unfortunately there are no set rules to obtain a word’s gender. Gender cannot be explained or figured out. However, there are a couple of clues  which can help you identify the gender:

For masculine nouns we use the definite article EL to define masculinity. Here you can see SOME examples:

Word Ending	Example	Translation
-l	el hotel	the hotel
-o	el plato	the plate
-n	el jardín	the garden
-e	el parque	the park
-r	el dolor	the pain
-s	el mes	the month
-or (for professions)	el autor	the author

For feminine nouns we use the definite article LA to define femininity. Here you can see SOME examples: 

Word Ending	Example	Translation
-a	la mesa la toalla	the table the towel
-ion, -cion	la canción la reunión	the song the reunion
-dad, -tad	la amistad la ciudad	the friendship the city
-ora (for professions)	la autora	the author
-ie	la especie	the species
-z	la nariz	the nose
-umbre	la costumbre	the custom

Bear in mind that due to the fact there are no set rules, there are exceptions. For example:

     el problema _ the problem

     la mano _ the hand

     el disfraz _ the costume

     la cárcel _ the prison

     la flor _ the flower

The best way to learn the nouns gender is that when you first learn a word you need to learn its gender in context. It is a matter of learning, practice and practice.

Another tip to know the gender of the words is to verify it in a dictionary. The best dictionary is the Real Academia Española, but you can also use Larousse in Spanish.