Feminine or masculine?!

Hi everyone! I really want to learn Spanish, first i thought that it was so easy but it's not that easy. I don't know which words are feminine or masculine. I'm going to give you an example for what i mean. Example: I live in Holland = Yo vivo en Holanda (masculine) Yo viva en Holanda (feminine) Not all words are feminine or masculine, my question is how do you know if a word have a feminine and a masculine form???? Please help me, thanking you in advance! :wink:

First, understand that when conjugating the first and second person tense of verbs, there is no difference between masculine and feminine. For example: Amy: Yo vivo en Los Estados Unidos Mauricio: Yo vivo en Los Estados Unidos The GENERAL rule for gender of nouns is that if they end with "a", they are feminine, otherwise they are masculine. Of course, as with all rules, there are exceptions. Off the top of my head a few that comes to mind are: el clima (weather) el mapa (map) la flor (flower)

Thanks for the explanation, but i already know if a word is masculine or feminine. I meant in the sentence. Can a female and a male both say yo vivO en Holanda?? I saw some other latin topics and female wrote viva and male wrote vivo. I hope you understand now what i mean. I want to know how you know if a word have a masculine AND a feminine form :?: :roll:

Ah, ya veo. I think that you may be referring to first person subjunctive, as opposed to gender. Maybe the guy says something like this to the girl: Si, yo vivo en Holanda, pero no vives en Holanda (Yes, I live in Holland, but you do not live in Holland) And maybe the girl said: Por qué no crees que yo viva en Holanda? (Why don't you believe that I live in Holland?) In this example, the guy makes a statement about where he lives saying "yo vivo." The girl, asking a question to the guy, is indicating that the guy has doubt about where she lives. This is a situation for the subjunctive form, in which case, the first person singular *subjunctive* of vivir is "yo viva." It is not a matter of gender at all. If the guy and girl traded places in the example I gave, the wording would not change - the girl would say "yo vivo" and the guy would say "yo viva." See my post a thread or two down concerning the subjuntivo (subjunctive). In fact, gracias a nohabla, see the following link: http://www.spanishome.com/activities/presentations/grammar/subjunctive.html

I got it now, many thanks 8)

What are the Spanish words for: Present simple, Present continuous, Past simple, Past continuous and Present perfect :?: