From Grace Fleming,
Your Guide to Homework / Study Tips.
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Spanish nouns are different from English nouns because they are characterized as being either "male" or "female." It is important to understand noun gender from the start, because the gender of a noun will determine the gender of other words that appear in sentences.

For instance, the article "the" will be either male (el) or female (la) in Spanish, depending on the gender of the noun. Similarly, the gender of a noun determines the form of many adjectives that describe it.

Example: la puerta blanca

For this reason, it is important to recognize the gender of nouns as you first learn them. One way to do this is to use color-coded flashcards to indicate the gender of the nouns as you learn them.

In the image above, you can see that the feminine word taza is accompanied by the female article la, and it is printed in pink. This method of creating flashcards is useful for visual learning.

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