The Spanish language has nouns that express concrete objects, groups and classes of objects, qualities, feelings and other abstractions. All nouns have a conventional grammatical gender. Countable nouns inflect for number (singular and plural). Note that the division between uncountable and countable nouns is not as clear-cut as in English. This article is about the international language known as Spanish. ... Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ... There are two names given to the Spanish language: Spanish (español) and Castilian (castellano). ... The Spanish language developed from vulgar Latin, with influence from Basque and Arabic, in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula (see Iberian Romance languages). ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but no noun declension and limited pronominal declension. ... The Spanish language uses determiners in a similar way to English. ... The Spanish language has a range of pronouns that in some ways work quite differently from English ones. ... The Spanish language uses adjectives in a similar way to English and most other Indo-European languages. ... The Spanish language has a relatively large number of prepositions. ... Spanish verbs are one of the most complex areas of Spanish grammar. ... Main article: Spanish verbs This is a paradigm of Spanish verbs, that is, a set of conjugation tables, for the model regular verbs and for some of the most common irregular verbs (see the article on Spanish irregular verbs for common patterns of irregularity that may help understanding this paradigm). ... Spanish verbs are a complex area of Spanish grammar, with many combinations of tenses, aspects and moods (up to fifty conjugated forms per verb). ... This article is about the international language known as Spanish. ...

Gender

All Spanish nouns have one of two grammatical genders: masculine or feminine (mostly conventional, that is, arbitrarily assigned). Most adjectives and pronouns, and all articles and participles, indicate the gender of the noun they reference or modify. A noun, or noun substantive, is a part of speech (a word or phrase) which can co-occur with (in)definite articles and attributive adjectives, and function as the head of a noun phrase. ... It has been suggested that natural gender be merged into this article or section. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually describing it or making its meaning more specific. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. ... An article is a word that is put next to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. ... In linguistics, a participle is a verbal adjective. ...

In a sentence like "Large tables are nicer", the Spanish equivalent, Las mesas grandes son más bonitas, must use words according to the gender of the noun. The noun, mesa ("table"), is feminine in Spanish. Therefore, the article (i. e. the word for "the") must be feminine too, and so la instead of el, is required. However, mesas is plural here, so we need las rather than la. The two adjectives, whether next to the noun or after the verb, have to "agree" with the noun as well. Grande is a word which is invariable for gender, so it just takes a plural marker: grandes. Bonito is a word that can agree for both gender and number, so we say bonitas to go with mesas. A student of Spanish must keep in mind all these features when making sentences.

Types of noun (masculine, vacillant, etc)

Nouns can be grouped in the following categories:

• In general
  • Feminine are most nouns that end in -a, -ción/-sión and -ad, though there are some exceptions.
  • Masculine are the rest of the nouns, usually ending in -o or a consonant.

• Applied to persons and most domesticated animals:
  • Declinable nouns. The feminine form adds a or replaces the final vowel by a. Examples: el profesor/la profesora, el presidente/la presidenta, el perro/la perra.
  • Invariant nouns (in Spanish, sustantivos de género común). The feminine form and the masculine form are identical: el artista/la artista, el testigo/la testigo, el estudiante/la estudiante.
  • Nouns with a unique grammatical gender. The noun has a fixed gender, regardless of the sex of the person it describes: el personaje, la visita. A recent politically correct usage substitutes the plural inclusive masculine (amigos, "friends, male or of any gender") with the character @ (amig@s) in writing, or with the longer form (amigos y amigas, or amigas y amigos). @ appears as a blend of o and a. This usage is unpronounceable, and mostly restricted to informal internet-speak. In leftist graffiti and posters, @ can be substituted by the anarchist symbol ( ), that also seems to blend O and A.

• Applied to wild and some domesticated animals:
  • Nouns where the two sexes of animals have different words to describe them: el toro/la vaca, el caballo/la yegua.
  • Epicene nouns. The gender of the noun is fixed and sex is indicated by macho (male) or hembra (female). Examples: la jirafa macho, la jirafa hembra, el rinoceronte macho, el rinoceronte hembra.

• Applied to things:
  • Masculine or inclusive: el pan.

• Feminine or exclusive: la leche.
  • Vacillant (called sustantivos ambiguos in Spanish). Either gender is acceptable: Internet is an example of this. Speakers hesitate between making it masculine like other loanwords from English, or making it feminine to agree with red, "net". Linde ("boundary") and testuz ("animal's forehead") can be either gender. Azúcar is probably the quirkiest example of such nouns. It can be masculine with el, feminine with el (bizarrely) or feminine with la. The determiner seems to go in the masculine in standard use: el, este, ese, tanto. Any adjectives agreeing with it are usually masculine in Spain and feminine in Latin America: el azúcar moreno o blanco / el azúcar negra o rubia. Mar is a special case. It is normally masculine, but in poetry and sailors' speech it is feminine. Arte is masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural, though it can be feminine in the singular when it means "art-form" and masculine in the plural in the expression los artes de pesca, "fishing gear".
  • In some cases the same word can take two genders with a different meaning for each. In that case it is better to say that there are two discrete words. El capital = "funds"; la capital = "capital city". El cura = "the priest"; la cura = "the cure".

(Note: Some nouns ending in -e that refer to persons are declinable, e.g., presidente/a, whereas others are invariant, e. g., estudiante. More often than not, nouns that refer to positions that are traditionally held by men are declinable.) Gender-neutral language (gender-generic, gender-inclusive, non-sexist, or sex-neutral language) is language that attempts to refer neither to males nor females when discussing an abstract or hypothetical person whose sex cannot otherwise be determined, as opposed to more traditional language forms, which may use male or female... Look up @ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary A commercial at, @, also called an at symbol, an at sign, or just at, is a symbolic abbreviation for the word at. ... The anarchy symbol, as it is popularly known, represents the ideals of anarchism. ... Image File history File links Anarchy-symbol. ...

Determining gender from endings

Nouns ending in -o are masculine, with the only notable exception of the word mano ("hand"); -a is typically feminine, with notable exceptions; other vowels and consonants are more often than not masculine, but many are feminine, particularly those referring to women (la madre) or ending in -ción, -dad, -ez (la nación, la soledad, la vejez).

A small set of words of Greek origin and ending in -ma are masculine: problema "problem", lema "lemma, motto", tema "theme, topic", sistema "system", telegrama "telegram", etc.

Words ending in -ista referring to a person can generally be either gender: el artista, la artista, "the artist, the female artist". The same is true of words ending in -ante or -ente, though sometimes separate female forms ending in -a are used.

Words taken from foreign languages may:

• Take the gender they have in that language, with neuter taken to be the same as masculine (so English nouns are made masculine)
• Take the gender it seems to be (e.g. la Coca-Cola because it ends in -a)
• Take the gender of the closest-related Spanish word (e.g. la Guinness because of la cerveza)

Gender of proper nouns (names)

Names of people

People's names agree with the sex of the person, even if they appear to be the opposite:

• Chema es guapo
• Amparo es guapa

Names of settlements

Usage for places varies. You can choose between making them:

• Feminine if they end in -a, otherwise masculine:
  • la Barcelona de Gaudí
  • el Londres de Dickens
• Agree with the underlying noun el pueblo or la ciudad
  • Nueva York (city)
  • la antigua Cartago (city)
  • Fraga es pequeño (village/small town)
• Always masculine: (this usage may seem wrong to some speakers)
  • Barcelona no es pequeño
  • Londres no es pequeño

With examples like New York, the Nueva is a fixed part of the name and so cannot be made masculine, but New Mexico is translated as Nuevo México and considered masculine, since México is a masculine noun.

Rivers

Rivers are masculine because of the underlying masculine noun río. The ancient Roman belief that rivers (amnes) were male gods may also influence this. Locally, a few rivers may be feminine, but the masculine is always safe and correct.

• el [río de la] Plata = "The River Plate" (literally "the River of Silver")
• el [río] Támesis = "The River Thames"
• el [río] Tajo = "The River Tagus"
• el [río] Colorado = "The Colorado River" (literally "the Red River")
• el [río] Cinca / la Cinca = "The River Cinca" (in the Aragonese Pyrenees)

Vestiges of a neutral gender

While Spanish is generally regarded to have two genders, its ancestor, Latin, had three. The transition from three genders to two is mostly complete, however, vestiges of a neuter gender can still be seen. This was noted by Andrés Bello in his work on the grammar of Latin American Spanish.[1] Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Andrés Bello Andrés Bello (Caracas, Venezuela, November 11, 1781 - Santiago, Chile, October 15, 1865), South American humanist, poet, lawmaker, philosopher, educator and philologist, whose work constitutes an important part of Spanish American culture. ...

Most notably, this is seen in pronouns like esto, eso, aquello, and ello, which are the neuter forms of este, ese, aquel, and él, respectively. These words correspond with English "this", "that", "him" or "it". Additionally the word lo, while usually masculine, can be considered neuter in some circumstances. It can also be used in the place of el to be a neutral form of the article "the", as in lo mismo, "the same". Bello also notes that words such as nada, poco, algo, and mucho can be used as neuters in some contexts.

Neuter forms such as esto were preserved because unlike most nouns in Latin, the difference between masculine and neuter for these pronouns did not depend on a final consonant. For example, most second declension Latin neuter singulars in the nominative case ended in -um, the non-neuter counterpart often ending in -us. When the final consonants in these endings are dropped, the result is -u for both; this became -o in Spanish. However, a word like Latin iste had the neuter istud; the former became este and the latter became esto in Spanish. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Latin grammar. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ...

Another sign that Spanish once had a grammatical neuter exists in words that derive from neuter plurals. In Latin, a neuter plural ended in -a, and so these words today in Spanish get interpreted as singular feminine, and take singular verb forms; however, they do express some notion of a plural. For example, la física corresponds to English "physics", a plural.

Number

There are two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. The singular form is the one found in dictionaries (base form). The plural is indicated in most words by adding -s (if the base form ends in a vowel) or -es otherwise. Note that final y in words like rey, though phonetically a vowel, counts as a consonant (rey → reyes).

The masculine gender is used for plural forms of mixed sexes (it is inclusive): los niños, grammatically masculine, may mean "the children" or "the boys". The feminine gender is exclusive in the plural: las niñas = "the little girls". When male sex needs to be shown exclusively in the plural, phrases such as los niños varones are used. Feminists (and their satirists) try to reverse the pattern with phrases such as las personas humanas jóvenes varones = "the young male human people".

Some words are formally always grammatically plural: pantalones "trousers", tijeras "scissors". In many dialects, however, these words are taken to be semantic plurals, and their singular forms are used instead: pantalón, tijera.

In expressions with an indefinite determiner, singular forms are used (unlike English, where "some" and "any" tend to modify plural nouns).

• Si hay algún árbol, lo derribaremos = "If there are any trees, we will fell them"
• Por cualquier medio = "By any means"

Forms of ninguno ("no") always take singular noun phrases, even where plurality might be intended:

• Ningún obstáculo se interpone = "No obstacle is in our way", "There are no obstacles in our way"
• No vi a ninguna mujer = "I saw no women", "I didn't see any women"

The determiner cualquiera has a plural form (cualesquiera), but it is never used outside formal or technical contexts.

Diminutives, augmentatives and suffixes

Spanish nouns can be made by adding a very productive set of suffixes to existing nouns and adjectives. This usually just slightly modifies the meaning, but sometimes it creates something new entirely.

The most common subset of such suffixes are the diminutives, which convey the idea of smallness, delicateness, etc. (also for endearing terms). The most common diminutive in Spanish is -it-. It is added to the root of the noun, and in actual usage it takes the proper agreement for gender and number. A diminutive is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object named, intimacy, or endearment. ...

• planta → plantita / plantota ("plant" → "little plant" / "big plant")
• vaso → vasito / vasote ("glass" → "little glass" / "big glass")
• niño → niñito / niñote ("small boy" → "little tiny boy" / "Big (little tiny) boy")

In other cases, this ending can be pejorative or belittling. Look up pejorative in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

• señor → señorito ("Sir/Mister" → "little sir/mister" (mockingly) compare (señora → señorita ("Madame/Mrs." → "Miss/Ms."))

When the word does not end in a vowel, -it- becomes -cit- for diminutives if the word ends in something other than an unstressed "-o" or "-a". Agreement marks are added to it according to the gender and number:

• botón → botoncito / botonote
• Carmen → Carmencita
• mamá" → mamacita
• madre → madrecita

This is slightly modified when the base word ends in z. Because z and soft c are the same sound in Spanish, an epenthetic e is inserted (notice the orthographic change): pez → pececito / pecezote. There is no fixed when the base ends in other consonants: azúcar → azuquítar or azuquita / azucota. In poetry and phonetics, epenthesis (Greek epi, on × en, in + thesis, putting) is the insertion of a phoneme or syllable into a word, usually to facilitate pronunciation. ...

When words end in -s or -te, there are varied approaches.

Local flavour

The choice of diminutive is often a mark of regional dialects and influence of coexistent Romance languages. Educated speakers who would use -ito or no diminutive at all in more formal speech may use local forms when they want a friendlier or more colourful way of expressing themselves, sometimes borrowing another region's diminutive.

So, instead of the standard -ito, you could find:

• -illo in Andalusia (’quillo for chico is a typical Cadiz interjection)
• -ico in Aragon
• -ín or -ino in Asturias, as in Asturian
• -iño in Galicia, as in Galician
• -uco in Cantabria
• -ete from Catalan
• -uelo this is an old fashioned Spanish suffix

In fossilised forms, these can be found in standard words, such as puerta → portillo, burro → borrico, Venecia → Venezuela, paño → pañuelo, calle → calleja → callejuela etc. Motto: Dominator Hercules Fundator Andalucía por sí, para España y la humanidad (Andalusia for herself, for Spain, and for humankind) Capital Seville Area  â€“ Total  â€“ % of Spain Ranked 2nd  87 268 km²  17,2% Population  â€“ Total (2005)  â€“ % of Spain  â€“ Density Ranked 1st  7. ... Capital Zaragoza Area  â€“ Total  â€“ % of Spain Ranked 4th  47 719 km²  9,4% Population  â€“ Total (2005)  â€“ % of Spain  â€“ Density Ranked 11th  1 269 027  2,9%  26,59/km² Demonym  â€“ English  â€“ Spanish  Aragonese  aragonés Statute of Autonomy August 16, 1982 ISO 3166-2 AR Parliamentary representation  â€“ Congress seats  â€“ Senate... Capital Oviedo Area  â€“ Total  â€“ % of Spain Ranked 10th  10 604 km²  2,1% Population  â€“ Total (2005)  â€“ % of Spain  â€“ Density Ranked 13th  1 076 635  2,4%  101,53/km² Demonym  â€“ English  â€“ Asturian  â€“ Spanish  asturian  asturianu  asturiano Statute of Autonomy January 11, 1982 Parliamentary representation  â€“ Congress seats  â€“ Senate seats  8  2... Asturian, Leonese, Astur-Leonese or Bable (Asturianu in Asturian, Llïonés in Leonese) is a Romance language spoken in some parts of the provinces of Asturias, León, Zamora and Salamanca in Spain, and in the area of Miranda de Douro in Portugal (where it is officially recognized as... Galicia (Spain) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Galician (Galician: galego) is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia. ... Capital Santander Area  â€“ Total  â€“ % of Spain Ranked 15th  5 321 km²  1. ... Catalan (Català IPA: ) also called Valencian (Valencià IPA: ) is a Romance language, the only official language of Andorra and co-official in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia. ...

Sometimes different suffixes are used for variety when more than one is used at once:

• chico → chiquito → chiquitillo etc.

There is a well-known tango called De chiquilin te miraba de afuera...

Other suffixes

As well as being an Andalusian (especially Seville) alternative to -ito, the suffix -illo is also a special diminutive with a nuance of "a funny sort of...". It is also used to create new nouns:

• palo "stick" → palillo "toothpick"
• bolso "handbag" → bolsillo "pocket"
• guerra "war" → guerrilla "hit-and-run warfare"

An example of the same phenomenon, but using an augmentative, is -ón:

• soltero "bachelor" → solterón "confirmed bachelor"
• soltera "single woman" → solterona "spinster"
• puerta "door" → portón "gate" / "large door"

Another suffix that can either denote a blow with or be an augmentative is -azo:

• Puerta ("door") → portazo ("slam of a door")
• Mano ("hand") → manotazo ("a hit with the hand")
• Cacerola ("saucepan") → cacerolazo (both "a blow with a saucepan" or "a big saucepan", also a form of protest)
• Caracas (Caracas, capital of Venezuela) → Caracazo (the "Caracazo", the violent protests of 27 February 1989)
• Derecha ("right hand") → derechazo (either a "right-hander" when slapping someone, or a "right-handed pass with the cape" in bullfighting)
• Flecha ("arrow") → flechazo ("arrow shot" / "arrow wound", or figuratively "love at first sight")