Gender
 In English, you probably only use the words "masculine" and "feminine" when talking about people, animals and plants.
In Spanish, all nouns have been given a gender.
Remember that a noun is a
person e.g., Sarah, friend, teacher
place e.g., school, Paris, your room
thing, or e.g., phone, shoe, bus
idea. e.g., liberty, justice, peace
Does that mean that Spanish speakers have tried to divide the whole world into more masculine stuff and more feminine stuff? No way.
It's just a simple tool to organize the language.
Masculine words will often end in the letter -o, and will use a masculine "the" - el.
Feminine words will often end in the letter -a, and will use the feminine "the" - la.
The cat is fat.
Masculine: El gato es gordo.
Feminine: La gata es gorda.
I suggest that you don't look for cultural clues in the gender of words. You won't find them.
Dress is a masculine word, and necktie is a feminine word, for example.
Rules
1. Nouns that end in -e only have one form and can be either gender. If it's a person,
you can tell whether it's a man or a woman by looking at the word "the" - el or la.
Example: el estudiante = male student la estudiante = female student
2. Nouns that end in -ist in English only have one form and can be either gender. (Ex: artist, dentist)
Those words end in -ista in Spanish. If it's a person, the word the will indicate gender: el or la.
Examples: el artista is a male artist la artista is a female artist.
el dentista is a male dentist la dentista is a female dentist.
3. Nouns that end in -tud in Spanish are always feminine.
Examples: gratitud, multitud
5. Words that end in -tad or -dad in Spanish are always feminine.
Examples: universidad, dificultad
6. Words that end in -sión or -ción in Spanish are always feminine.
Examples: televisión, educación
7. Some words came into Spanish from the ancient Greek (instead of Latin, where most words in Spanish came from).
Many of these words end in -ma but are masculine.
Examples: el planeta the planet
el sistema the system
el programa the program
el problema the problem
el clima the climate
el día the day
el poema the poem
el idioma the language
el drama the drama
el tema the theme
8. There are a only few words that end in -o but are feminine.
The only ones I can remember are la mano (the hand) and la radio (the radio).
9. Some feminine words that start with the letter "a" use the masculine the - el - so the sounds don't run together.
el agua fría = cold water
el águila calva = bald eagle
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