grammar.nouns.gender-basic
Every noun has a gender
Spanish nouns are masculine or feminine — including objects and ideas: el libro, la mesa. The gender drives articles, adjectives, and pronouns.
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Explanation
Every Spanish noun has a grammatical gender — masculine or feminine — including inanimate objects and abstract ideas: el libro, la mesa, el amor, la libertad. There is no neuter for nouns. Gender is a property of the word, not of any logic about the thing.
Gender is the engine of agreement: articles, adjectives, and pronouns must all match the noun. El libro nuevo, la mesa nueva, los libros nuevos, las mesas nuevas — change the noun's gender and everything around it changes too.
The practical takeaway: learn every noun together with its article from the start. Memorizing mesa alone is half the job; la mesa is the complete unit, because the article carries the gender you'll need for every word that agrees with it.
Examples
The red car is on the wide street.
Region: global
It's a serious problem.
Region: global
The red car is on the wide street.