The Gender of Nouns: Part One

Today we are talking about gender.  

For most of you, this will probably make sense. You are either a speaker of a language that has genders (French, Spanish, German), or you are familiar with the concept. Our readers are cultured, well-traveled peeps that understand the intricacies of linguistics. Cleo Leo understands this.     

For the psychos that have no idea what we are talking about, though (or those of you that were sleeping during high school Spanish class), this one’s for you. Pay attention, and you might finally start saying things correctly.

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So basically, Arabic is a gendered language. This means that all nouns are either considered “masculine” or “feminine.”

These genders are important to learn. They change the way other words (usually adjectives) interact with the noun, and to neglect them at the beginning can set you up for a ton of frustration down the line.

But the genders are also confusing. If you’ve ever studied (or speak) a language that has them, you know exactly what I mean. Oftentimes, the gender of a noun is completely arbitrary, and no amount of reasoning can lead you to guess correctly. This is especially true if you are a native speaker of a “genderless” language like English.

Some nouns are easy. “Girl” (bent) is obviously a feminine noun, while “boy” (weled) is clearly masculine.

The tricky part comes when a thing just can’t possibly be gendered.

Take “chair” (korsee) كرسي, for example. This one’s a masculine noun. Because…..only dudes sit on chairs?

And “table” (tarabeeza)  ترابيزة just happens to be a feminine noun. Because…..a woman’s favorite piece of furniture in the house is the table?

Just doesn’t make sense.

Here are some other nouns for you, along with their gender.

One bit of advice we have for you (and a bit of a lifeline, if only for some nouns) is the “tambrubootuh” (ة). This is a lovely letter at the end a noun that automatically makes it feminine. At least you have something going for you.

Because of this, almost all the professions could easily be changed from masculine to feminine (and vice versa) just by adding or removing this sweet letter. Here are some examples:

If the tone of this post seems a bit negative to you….congratulations. It is.

Like most (if not all) gendered languages, there’s no easy way around the whole “feminine vs. masculine” thing. There is no rhyme or reason to which noun is considered which gender, but at the same time, to skip it would be to consistently pair adjective endings with nouns incorrectly.

We will be giving you some more information in Part 2 regarding how exactly to pair nouns and adjectives, but for now, we’ll leave you with this: learn them from the beginning.

Skipping the pesky gender issue when learning a language is a ticking time bomb. It’s cute at first, but that quickly changes. The better at Arabic you get, the more inconvenient it becomes to say every other sentence incorrectly.

Accept the language for what it is, and do whatever you have to do to remember genders.

Maybe writing the gender next to every noun you learn is the way to go. That’s certainly what a lot of serious learners do.  

Or maybe mnemonic devices (think “only dudes sit on chairs”) is the way to go, after all.

Like most things….whatever gets you speaking correctly.

Happy learning to you, and all your ة’s.

We’ll see you in Part 2. 🙂