spanish nouns

in spanish all nouns are either maculine or femenine so it was wondering how a door could be femenine

Spanish nouns have either a masculine or feminine gender, but the gender is not necessarily associated with the sex of a thing. El hombre and La mujer have obvious connections to their sex. El niño and la niña as well. The gender of some nouns is sort of symbolic: el sol and la luna. Most, for whatever reason, are assigned genders, such as your example, la puerta. The gender of some nouns doesn'tt seem to be logical, such as el vestido (the dress, a masculine noun for an article of clothing normally worn by a woman) and la corbata (the tie, normally worn by a man.) They just are what they are. They don't all make sense from an english point of view, but if you want to learn Spanish you need to learn the gender of nouns.

We also need to learn that some nouns are masculine in the singular, yet feminine in the plural. Por ejemplo: el agua, las aguas el águila, las águilas Name some more fellow language learners!

And in addition, according to this article at http://www.e-spanyol.hu/en/grammar/gender.php Some words can be used as either feminine or masculine but this will change their meaning. For example, el papa = the pope la papa = the potato or el corte = cut la corte = court If learning another language was easy, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun!

Hola a todos, El agua and el águila are still feminine even though a masculine article proceeds it. Way back I read somewhere that this is to make for clearer pronunciation, kind of like using se to avoid the la la situation. In any case the gender does not alter. Saludos, Rich

Por ejemplo, el águila roja, las águilas rojas. El águila "rojo" no es correcto. Saludos, Rich

Fue un error "typo" las águila". Lo he corregido,

Rich, Thanks for correcting my misrepresentation. You are of course correct and your examples further clarify using these irregular nouns. Dan, you also chimed in nicely with the way articles can change the meaning. One more example comes to mind similarly to the "el vestido" and "la puerta" is "la mano"

Hola Patrice, Aqui están pocos más sustantivos irregulares, el tema , el sofa, el problema, el sistema y el idioma. Saludos, Rich

Hola buenos dias!!! This a very interesting topic. Since i was born with this language, sometimes we don't question the gender of certain things, even if some of them dont seem to make sense, but anyway, i just wanted to add a few things to this topic. I noticed you started with "La puerta" , we also have similar words for door, which have the same root but different gender. For example " El portón" (which is like a very big door). Did you notice all those words you mentioned start with the letter A? Well, if you say La aguila, la agua or la azúcar, well, you will be generating a cacophnoy , in other words, you have to letter A together, and sounds, well, it sounds funny, the same reason why you guys have in english "a" and "an" to avoid saying " I have a apple". Other examples i can think of are : El aula, el aura, el karma, la raqueta (the racket you use for playing tennis) etc. I am currently learning german (this is why i'm here in rocket languages) and in german they dont have 2 genders...they have 3!!!! so, again, even if i am very well accustomed to the gender thing, i find it very strange for me, that the german word for SUN , Die Sonne, is femenine (in spanish is El sol) and that the word for moon, Der Mond is masculine (whereas in spanish is La Luna). I hope this was usefull, and if you have any questions , please contact me! Saludos desde Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico!

Hola todos, In the recesses of my brain I am also thinking that another curious item on the "feminine and masculine" is with trees and their fruits. Is it true that the names of many trees are masculine, yet their bearing fruit name is feminine? Can someone concur and/or provide some examples? I am at a loss right now for an example. Sorry!

Hi Patrice! I can think of the apple right now. The tree is called Manzano and the fruit Manzana. El manzano(the tree) and La manzana (the fruit). El naranjo (orange tree) produces la naranja (the orange). Another case , is with Banana. Some of us spanish speakers call the banana, "El plátano" but also a few called it "La banana" so we have 2 genders for this fruit. And bananas are produced in palm trees, which we call in spanish, la palma or la palmera...so this is inverse example. The tree is feminine and the fruit is masculine. Same case with the coconut and dates, which also come from palms and are masculine, el coco and el dátil. The papaya, is know in some places as la papaya (mexico's case) , el papayo (in some other latinamerican countries) and fruta bomba in Cuba , for example, where "papaya" has a different meaning (i think is something sexual, reffering to the female body part hahaha, so dont ask for a papaya if you travel to Cuba haha). La piña or El ananás (pineapple) is another example of dual gender. El tomate or jitomate (tomatoe or tomato), which comes from xitomatl its a spanish word derived from a nahuatl (precolombian language spoken in Mexico and central América by the Aztecs) same with aguacate from aguacatl (avocado) and even chocolate, from the word xocolatl or chocolatl, which of course means...CHOCOLATE! haha. Try to imagine italian cuisine without "Il pomodoro"( the tomato, as the italians call it, it means "golden apple" pomo=apple, doro or oro= gold). Anyway! Have a great day! saludos!

Hola Cristian Montes de Oca, Thank you for all the examples! Fascinating really! This is the first I have seen "el ananas" for pineapple. Completely different fruit, but the word reminded me of the "anonas" that are in season here now and are delicious. I see jitomate in the markets here in Merida and I thought it was a type of tomatoe like "roma". Me encantan los aquacates y chocolate. Have you studied nahuatl and Italian, along with your English and Spanish? I also enjoy your comments in these forums. :)

Hola Patrice! De nada! :) We don't use ananás for pinneapple here in Mexico, but i know some countries in south america do. Regarding the Tomatoes, el Jitomate and Tomate, mean the same thing, for what i have noticed , people in southern Mexico use Jitomate more than Tomate, but of course, everyone knows where are talking about the Tomatoes. So, Jitomate is not a type of Tomate, is just another name. The most popular type of Tomatoes we use here in Mexico are Tomate Saladette, Tomate Roma and Tomate bola. The state of Baja California (where i live and was born and raised) is one of the top producers of tomatos in Mexico, alongside the state of Sinaloa (the state even has a baseball team called "Los tomateros de Cualiacán" which is the capital of Sinaloa), i am not a big baseball fan, so i just know they are one of the best baseball teams in Mexico. By the way Culiacan names also comes from nahuatl. I've never really studied Nahuatl, during our primary school, while studying Mexico history and also Spanish, most teachers pointed out the importance of the pre-columbian indigenous people (amerindians) in the formation of our culture, way of living and language, so i learned a few words, and took some interest in learning about the Mayans and the Aztecs, primarly. Our national dishes, our mexican spanish and our flag (the eagles, eating a snake, standing in a nopal, another nahuatl word, was found by the Aztecs and they decided to establish Mexico City there, or Tenochtitlan, as it was called on those days), have direct conection to those ancient civilization, even our country's name is believed to be derived from Nahuatl, either from "Place at the Center of the Moon" to "The place where Huitzilopochtli lives" , this crazy Huitzilopochtli word, is the name of an Aztec God, and even for us Mexicans is a bit hard to pronounce hahahah. About Italian, i also, havent really studied it in a formal way, i do know some phrases, words and it is amazing how similar is to spanish, since they both derived from Latin, same thing with portuguese (which i also understand to some extent) French (i have studied in an informal way, and even downloaded the Rocket French free trial) and Galician (which is very very extremly similar to spanish). The only "formal" languages i have studied is English and German...and well, technically speaking also Spanish, even if it is my native language, and which i never really stop learning and have been focusing a lot on grammar, ortography and also the different regional variatons (For example Mérida speaks a lot different than people in my city, this includes some expressions, and primarly the accent). Anyway!!! i started writing and when i realized i had a ton of words here hahaha, i hope i havent bored you much!. Here is a list of nahuatl words, which include words you probably know, like Tamales, atole, elote(corn), Chipotle, jalapeño, Jicama, Mezquite, and even Marihuana (which i just discovered to have some nahuatl rooth, i will investigate haha) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_words_of_Nahuatl_origin Saludos desde Tijuana, Baja California. Endlich freitag und ich wunsche dir einen schonen start ins wochende!