All nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine. Nouns that refer to inanimate objects (those that are not living), usually only ever have one gender. Sometimes a noun can take both a masculine and feminine form when it refers to a person or other living thing that can be separated by gender.

The names we use to describe our professions are examples of nouns that usually take both a masculine and feminine form. This is even common practice in English where gender is much less important (waiter / waitress - for example).

The following list shows some of the most common types of professions in both Spanish and English. You will notice that in Spanish many of the masculine nouns end in 'o' and many of the feminine nouns end in 'a'. Sometimes the noun takes the same form for both genders.

It is not always easy to identify the gender of a particular noun by the way it is spelt! When learning Spanish nouns it is a good idea to learn the article that goes with the noun; 'el' for masculine and 'la' for feminine.

Much more information on articles is given in the lesson entitled 'Articles - definite / indefinite.' Some professions in Spanish have only one gender. 'el gorila' (bouncer) and 'el ama de casa' (housewife) are examples.

You might be wondering why the Spanish word for housewife which is feminine takes a masculine articel 'el'!

Some feminine nouns that begin with 'a' or 'ha' take masculine articles. Without them the two words together would sound strange.

Some professions in Spanish take the same masculine and feminine forms but take different articles; 'el artista' - masculine and 'la artista' - feminine.

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Much more information about how we ask questions and how we talk about ourselves is given in the online lessons.