Getting my masculine and feminine articles mixed up

[Foxfeeder]

I have never had much luck learning other languages but, after a recent holiday, thought I would try again before the next holiday so have been using Duolingo to learn Spanish for a couple of weeks. Theoretically, I’m doing quite well but I’m quite good at remembering small amounts of vocabulary at a time and often the exercises can be worked out by process of elimination and the words often being so closely related to their English counterpart.

The bit that I do fall down on regularly is whether a word is masculine or feminine to use the correct article (and I am like a rabbit in headlights whenever someone speaks to me).

What I’d really like to know, from anyone who has English as a second language, is how much does it really matter to you if someone attempts to speak your first language and gets their el’s and la’s mixed up (and then throws in a le for good measure because that’s a word floating around in their brain right now too)?

[Shopgirl1]

There is logic to it. Nouns ending in o are usually masculine, a feminine, and as explained, sandwich in Spanish ends in o, burger in a.
There are exceptions - el agua…but the noun is still feminine, it’s just the stressed a at the start leads to el being used in the singular.
Keep practising, it gets easier with time, but no one cares about the odd mistake.

[RascafríaMom]

As a native English speaker living in Spain who is a native English speaker, so long as you can effectively communicate, 95% of the time people won't care.

The other 5% are going to correct your Spanish. They may even correct it when you do it right. I've used esposa a bunch of times and had people correct me, no, esposo because male. And I am, "No, esposa. My wife is a woman."

Then you get the 0.1% who, if that is done related to them, may think you're accusing them of being gay/a homosexual or being deliberately transphobic. (That's why you shouldn't as a non-native speaker ever try to use artificially constructed written Spanish gender neutral in verbal conversation with others as that really ups the odds of that.) Those may cause a stink and problems, but you can generally spot those folks early on as they fit a certain stereotype.

[Foxfeeder]

OP - no native Spanish speaker is going to be offended, confused or probably at all surprised if you get genders wrong.

This reminds me of the conversation I had about my brother and sister being several years older than me but I referred to them throughout as mi hijo and mi hija. The man did look surprised but didn’t correct me 🤣

[Foxfeeder]

KnittingNeedles: I’ve also read about the acronym LONERS with words ending in those letters generally being masculine too. However, it’s not sinking in - yet!

Clearsomespace: that’s reassuring. I often think that an indistinct un or una can be hidden by a dodgy accent. I can’t imagine that I’ll get to the stage of using homophones as the reality is that I’ll probably not get much beyond the need to ask for una mesa para dos por favor but I just want to lose the out of control feeling I get when I have no idea what someone is saying to me.

You and Cooroo are right that I should listen to the language more. My most successful experience was when visiting Peru and every bus or plane I travelled on had a mix of films with Spanish/English dubbing and subtitles and the tours were all dual language so I picked up a lot more vocabulary.

[Fairislefandango]

It’s also frustrating because there’s no logic to it! Sandwich is masculine but burger is feminine? Dress is masculine? Whyyyyyy!!

Because (unless you're talking about people) the gender of a word has nothing to do with sex, and actually also nothing to do with the meaning of the word! It's more to do with what the word looks like. It's jyst a grammatical category.

It's not too awful in Spanish, because so many nouns end in o or a (the former almost invariably masculine and the latter feminine). There are also other endings which indicate a particular gender (e.g. -ación,feminine).

OP - no native Spanish speaker is going to be offended, confused or probably at all surprised if you get genders wrong. The best thing to do is let it all hang out and go for it (trust me - I'm a language teacher ) .Don't even give mistakes a second thought when you're speaking. Just communicate! Mistakes are totally inevitable. Even native speakers make mistakes!

[Foxfeeder]

@Justawaterformeplease

It’s also frustrating because there’s no logic to it! Sandwich is masculine but burger is feminine? Dress is masculine? Whyyyyyy!! A vocabulary book is a good idea though!

These are two of the words that I’ve used an example when telling my partner - they’ve cropped up a lot in the lessons so far 🤣

[Justawaterformeplease]

@KnittingNeedles

A basic rule is that nouns ending in O are masculine - el perro, el gato, el sombrero - and that nouns ending in A are feminine - la mesa, la camiseta, la manzana, la playa.

There are exceptions to this - el dia is the day and la mano is the hand. But it's true in 95% or more of cases. Nouns which end in other letters are trickier but once you get into the language more you will instinctively realise that "la sol" sounds weird, it has to be el sol.

Agree that there isn't logic but sandwich is bocadillo, ends in O = masculine. Ditto dress which is vestido, ends in O = masculine. Hamburguesa ends in a = feminine.

This is really helpful - thank you!!

[clearsommespace]

English is my first language but I live in a country which has masculine and feminine nouns. People usually understand anyway when you make a mistake (and enjoy correcting you).

On top of what has been said already, my advice is

1. pay particular attention to the few words where using the wrong pronoun can actually change the meaning of what you say (homophones) and don't stress too much about getting it wrong for the other words when you speak
   
2. listen to the language as much as, possible. Eventually using the wrong pronoun will sound wrong and you won't have to try to remember.
   
   Good luck!

[KnittingNeedles]

A basic rule is that nouns ending in O are masculine - el perro, el gato, el sombrero - and that nouns ending in A are feminine - la mesa, la camiseta, la manzana, la playa.

There are exceptions to this - el dia is the day and la mano is the hand. But it's true in 95% or more of cases. Nouns which end in other letters are trickier but once you get into the language more you will instinctively realise that "la sol" sounds weird, it has to be el sol.

Agree that there isn't logic but sandwich is bocadillo, ends in O = masculine. Ditto dress which is vestido, ends in O = masculine. Hamburguesa ends in a = feminine.

[Cooroo]

The genders of words go back to pre-Latin. Think of them as types of word rather than getting hung up on sex.
English used to have this and more scary things besides, but because it's a mix of so many languages a lot of the grammar just got dropped. It did cause our chaotic spelling though!
As extra input I try to watch YouTubers - Juan (Español Con Juan) is very good. He just talks but is very clear. I also talk to a Spanish woman I found on Facebook - we chat twice a week in English and Spanish. We actually met up this year!

[Justawaterformeplease]

It’s also frustrating because there’s no logic to it! Sandwich is masculine but burger is feminine? Dress is masculine? Whyyyyyy!! A vocabulary book is a good idea though!

[Foxfeeder]

Gosh Cooroo, you are well down the line. I hope I’ll still be doing my lessons by the time we go away in October.

I think I’ve realised that I need to start using a vocabulary book like at school as I’m keeping it all in my head at the moment and that’s bound for failure. I do try to do a practice lesson of each section every day to help the process of remembering but still kick myself at these stupid mistakes 🥴

[Cooroo]

I can't answer your question, sorry! But I've been doing Duo Spanish for nearly 1300 days. I still feel like a rabbit in headlights when anyone speaks to me, but I can make myself understood pretty well!
The m/f thing does fall into place. Try and learn the word with the article- 'la pared', 'el coche' etc.