Suffix -a mostly female Suffix -al mostly male There are exceptions but it’s a good rule of thumb.
Comment on WHY
zephorah@lemm.ee 1 week ago
La Casa vs El hospital. What determines the gender of each? Spelling is great, but this piece boggles the mind.
Onionguy@lemm.ee 1 week ago
bdonvr@thelemmy.club 1 week ago
And then you get - el agua
Feminine. With feminine adjectives. El agua clara
Spanish is still way more consistent than English tho
Onionguy@lemm.ee 6 days ago
Yeah like I said mostly. Same with el problema, etc. There’s probably a nice ethymological explanation to memorize them better but in the end you have to deal with irregularities in any language except maybe Esperanto or some other artificial ones.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
I’m sure there’s etymological reasons, but in practice ‘la hospital’ being less pleasant to say (with two vowel sounds directly next to each other) probably contributed. Like how it’s el agua, even though any adjectives for it are feminine: el agua contaminada.
deegeese@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
In Spanish, most masculine verbs are “LONERS”, and end with one of those letters.