Gender Specifics in Spanish

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Nouns in Spanish are classified according to their gender - masculine, feminine, or
neuter. Now, we have some of that in English too - for example, the word 'man' is masculine, while 'woman' is feminine. But in Spanish, all nouns have a gender, which has an affect on the article and adjectives that you use with the word. The question is, how do you know if a word is masculine or feminine? For example, the word 'camion' (truck) - what the heck is the gender of that word?

To help you solve this problem, I’d like to introduce you to Lawrence, a clever guy from California, and Dazcion, a pretty maiden from Mexico.

Lawrence can help you remember which nouns in Spanish are masculine because he is a
guy, while Dazcion can do the same for feminine nouns. How is that possible? Read on.

Spanish nouns ending in L, O, R, E, N, and S (Lorens, or 'Lawrence') are masculine. Here are some examples:

el Árbol [ar-bohl] ‘tree’
el Azucar [ah-zoo-kar] ‘sugar’
el Barrio [bar-ree-oh] ‘town’
el Cinturón [seen-tu-rohn] ‘belt’
el Garaje [ga-ra-hey] ‘garage’
el País [pah-ees] ‘country’

On the other hand, nouns ending in D, A, Z, and Cion are feminine. Some examples are shown below:

la Agua [ah-gwa] ‘water’
la Dirección [di-rek-see-on] ‘address’
la Juventud [hoo-ven-tood] ‘youth’
la Luz [looz] ‘light’

Hence, when you encounter a Spanish noun, all you have to do is look at its
ending and see if it belongs to Lawrence (L-O-R-E-N-S) or Dazcion to know its gender. I recommend that as you learn the words for nouns (people, places, things) that you always learn it together with the correct article - "la" for feminine and 'el' for masculine.