Family
Family
Spanish nouns carry grammatical gender in a way English no longer does — but for family words, gender simply tracks the person's sex, so it lines up naturally with English he/she and matches your instincts closely.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
el/la for people — tracks sex, just like English he/she
el padre (masc.) / la madre (fem.)
the father / the mother
Spanish has only masculine and feminine, not three genders. For family words this is easy and intuitive: el/un for men, la/una for women — the same distinction English already makes with he/she, just extended onto the article and adjectives too, which English doesn't do. The harder part comes later — Spanish also genders inanimate objects (la mesa, el libro) with no biological logic at all, something English has no equivalent for since it dropped noun gender entirely.
-o/-a endings often reveal gender at a glance
hermano (brother, -o) / hermana (sister, -a)
no equivalent shared-root pattern in English
Many Spanish family words come in matched -o/-a pairs — hermano/hermana, tío/tía, abuelo/abuela — where swapping the final vowel swaps the gender. English has nothing like this: 'brother' and 'sister' share no root at all, so this pairing is a genuinely new shortcut to notice and use, not something to expect an English parallel for.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| Spanish | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| la madre | lah MAH-dreh | mother |
| el padre | el PAH-dreh | father |
| el hermano | el er-MAH-noh | brother |
| la hermana | lah er-MAH-nah | sister |
| la abuela | lah ah-BWEH-lah | grandmother |
| el abuelo | el ah-BWEH-loh | grandfather |
| el hijo | el EE-hoh | son |
| la hija | lah EE-hah | daughter |