In some languages like English there is definite article (the) and an indefinite article (a/an/some) for both singular and plural forms. In Spanish, however, the article depends very much on the gender of the word because there are masculine and feminine words whether the word is in singular or plural.

One basic example of this can be the word for “boy” and the word for “girl”.

But what happens when you want to refer to a group of boys AND girls? In that case you use the masculine plural form “niños”. You only use “niñas” (girls) when the group consists exclusively of girls. Something similar happens with the word “todos”, which means everyone. “Todas” means everyone but only if this group is completely female. For a group of men and women, the plural masculine form “todos” is used. 

Most words referring to objects and abstract ideas have a fixed gender. “Silla” (chair) is always feminine, but “piso”(floor) is always masculine. “Felicidad”(happiness) is always feminine, but “amor” (love) is always masculine. However, this changes when referring to animals or people.

“El gato” (the cat) is usually masculine, but when referring to a female cat, you say “la gata”. The same with the word for goose; you say “ganzo” for a male goose and “ganza” for a female one. Sometimes animals have specific words for male and female. “Caballo” is a male horse but “yegua” is a female one.

For some professions and jobs, this changes according to gender. For most professions that end in an “o”, there is a female equivalent with an “a”.

“El arquitecto” (the architect) can become “la arquitecta” when talking about a woman.

 For most professions or jobs that end with an “e”, only the article changes.

“El estudiante” (the student) can become “la estudiante”, when talking about a girl or woman. The same case for “el presidente” (the male president) and “la presidente” (the female president).

For most professions or jobs that end with “or”, you can change it to “ora” or “triz”.

For example, “el actor” (the actor) and “la actriz” (the actress), “el emperador” (the emperor) and “la emperatriz” (the empress), and “el escritor” (the male writer) and “la escritora” (the female writer).