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Gender of Nouns

Nouns that end in "-o" are usually masculine, while nouns that end in "-a" are usually feminine. But there are a number of exceptions. Here are two common ones:

Spanish Word English Equivalent Gender
la mano the hand feminine
el día the day masculine

As you can see, "mano" is an exception to the rule that says that nouns that end in "-o" are usually masculine. But because you learn it with the feminine definite article "la" you won't be tricked! The same for "el día." Even though it ends in "-a" you know it's masculine because of the masculine article "el."

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