Unlike English, Spanish nouns and adjectives have gender and number. That is, (1) they are either masculine or feminine and (2) they have singular and plural forms.
The gender of nouns is often apparent either by the meaning of the word or its form. Words that relate specifically to men and women are sometimes masculine and feminine, respectively.
el hombre (man) — masculinela mujer (woman) — feminine
Although there is a great deal of randomness in the gender of many nouns, many of their genders are reasonably predictable by their spelling.
Many feminine nouns end with the vowel
-a:
But, words that end in -ma are often
masculine:
Other feminine endings include -dad and
-ción:
Masculine nouns normally end with the vowel
-o:
Other masculine nouns that end in -dor and -aje
are masculine as well:
Some nouns are either masculine or feminine, depending on the
sex of the person to whom the word refers. Some examples, most
ending in -ista, are:
The rules for the pluralization of nouns and adjectives are identical.
A. Nouns and adjectives ending in a vowel (a, e, i,
o, or u) simply add an -s to pluralize the
word:
B. Nouns and adjectives ending in a consonant (any letter
other than the vowels listed above) add -es to the singular
form:
C. Certain words change their spelling slightly when pluralized
(word final -z > -ces):
D. Words that end with a stressed syllable bearing a written
accent mark lose the accent mark: