Lesson 12: How to know which words are feminine and how verbs ending 'er' and 'ir' work Flashcards
words ending in what two types are all feminine
- a (Casa)
- ión
La administración
The administration
La opinión
The opinion
La asosiación
The association
La celebración
The celebration
And you’ll notice that in all these cases the last ‘o’ has an accent. That’s a general rule to remember for the written word but it also tells us when pronouncing to put the accent on the end.
All words that end ‘ity’ in English end in ‘___’ in Spanish are also feminine
idad
Diversidad
Diversity
La diversidad
The diversity
La nacionalidad
The nationality
La creatividad
The creativity
La electricidad
The electricity
Now with ‘idad’ words if you take off the ‘idad’ you often end up quite close to the word for the object. It doesn’t always work but if you’re stuck or need to guess its worth a try!
Electrico
Electric
Generosidad
Generosity
Generoso
Generous
Generosidad-Generosity
Generoso-Generous
Now these words ending ‘o’ suggest a male word. For female words we go back to the rule that words ending ‘a’ are feminine.
So if we were talking about a ‘generous’ person who was feminine, what would it be?
Generosa
more ‘ity’ practice
write Community in: spanish, the community, and what word can be derived from it as per the following rule
All words that end ‘ity’ in English end in ‘idad’ in Spanish are also feminine
with ‘idad’ words if you take off the ‘idad’ you often end up quite close to the word for the object. It doesn’t always work but if you’re stuck or need to guess its worth a try!
Comunidad
Commnunity
La comunidad
The commnunity
Común
Common
If we are talking about more than one thing or person we add an ‘s’
Generosos- Generous (them, male)
Generosas- Generous (them, female)
What if we wanted to decribe a group of people as generous when that group is male or female.
The rule here is that as soon as one male gets involved you use the masculine - ‘generosos’.
more ‘ity’ practice
write Opportunity in: spanish, the community, and what word can be derived from it as per the following rule
All words that end ‘ity’ in English end in ‘idad’ in Spanish are also feminine
with ‘idad’ words if you take off the ‘idad’ you often end up quite close to the word for the object. It doesn’t always work but if you’re stuck or need to guess its worth a try!
Oportunidad
Opportunity
Oportuno
Opportune (masculine word)
Oportuna
Opportune (feminine word)
more ‘ity’ practice
write Clarity in: spanish, and what word can be derived from it as per the following rule
All words that end ‘ity’ in English end in ‘idad’ in Spanish are also feminine
with ‘idad’ words if you take off the ‘idad’ you often end up quite close to the word for the object. It doesn’t always work but if you’re stuck or need to guess its worth a try!
Claridad
Clarity
Claro
Clear
what does claro mean
You’ll often here ‘claro’ on the street as it means “Is that clear?” or “It’s clear to me”. So you will hear one person talking and the other saying “Claro, claro, claro”.
more ‘ity’ practice
write Personality in: spanish, and what word can be derived from it as per the following rule
All words that end ‘ity’ in English end in ‘idad’ in Spanish are also feminine
with ‘idad’ words if you take off the ‘idad’ you often end up quite close to the word for the object. It doesn’t always work but if you’re stuck or need to guess its worth a try!
Personalidad
Personality
Persona
Person
more ‘ity’ practice
write Sincerity in: spanish, and what word can be derived from it as per the following rule
All words that end ‘ity’ in English end in ‘idad’ in Spanish are also feminine
with ‘idad’ words if you take off the ‘idad’ you often end up quite close to the word for the object. It doesn’t always work but if you’re stuck or need to guess its worth a try!
Sinceridad
Sincerity
Sincero
Sincere (masuline word)
what is the key sound with verbs ending
- ar
- ir / er
The key sound with ‘ar’ verbs is always ‘a’
The key sound with ‘er’ and ‘ir’ verbs is ‘e’ (as in elephant).
what does this mean
Me lo venden
Me lo venden
they/you (plural) are selling it to me
what does this mean
no Me lo venden
Me lo venden
they/you (plural) are not selling it to me
The “not” bit (‘no’) always comes first
Then the person (‘me’)
Then the thing (‘lo’)
Then what is happening (‘venden’)
When I first started learning Spanish all these little words - ‘lo’, ‘me’, ‘no’ - used to confuse the hell out of me until I used the following method.
Jumping far ahead here (but it helps!) the Spanish for “I gave it to myself” is ‘Me lo dí’ which sounds like the English word “Melody” so now we know the order of these small words.
Next remember that a “melody” should not be broken so if there is a ‘no’ involved it will have to be outside and remember it as “No melody”.
“I gave it to myself” might be a strange one but we use it sometimes - “I bought it for her birthday but she didn’t invite me so I gave it to myself!”.
