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.