When I was in the 7th grade I knew I wanted to teach Spanish. I inhaled and devoured as much as I could. I took 5 years of Spanish classes in 4 years of high school. While still studying and practicing in USA, I worked and worked, saved and saved, and eventually attended the University of Salamanca in Spain. I traveled in Central America and Mexico, sucking up as many Spanish dialects as possible.
While even in the 7th grade, it became obvious that male/female is practically EVERYWHERE in the the Spanish language. Thousands of nouns are either male or female, depending on the final vowel: -a- is feminine; -o- is masculine.
Silla = chair
Libro = book
Camisa = shirt
Zapato = shoe
Brazo = arm
Cabeza = head
Every word ending in ‘o’ is masculine. Every word ending in a is feminine. Even the article ‘the’ changes according to the noun: El Libro, La Silla.
There are a few exceptions and irregulars, just like in any language.
The 3rd person pronouns are
Ella - she
Él - he..
The e in the word Él an accent to form the word ‘he.’ Without the accent on the ‘e’, El means ‘the’ Some words in Spanish completely change meaning with an accent on a certain vowel.
A quick search of Spanish language discussions shows that the woke crowd is trying change to a gender neutral pronoun ‘elle’ for he/she. There is a great deal of skepticism that ‘El Wokismo’ will succeed in Europe. We shall see.
Thanks, I got to Spanish 3 and only other experience is with some contractors in the field building houses many moons ago. But probably forgot more than I ever learned. Is there any difference in pronunciation with the accent?
Italian is the same, and so is French. Everything is gendered.
definite article / subject pronoun / object pronoun
English: the / he, she, it / him, her, it
Spanish: el, la / él, ella / lo, le
Italian: il, la / egli, egla / gli, le
French: le, la / lui, elle / lui, la