Vocabulary - What's My Occupation?

Okay, now let’s take a look at the following ocupación list.

OCCUPATIONS

Neutral or Non-Gender Specific Words

That is quite a long list of new Spanish vocabulary words to learn but if you focus on how simple it is to change a word from masculine to feminine it is not as difficult as it may first seem. Notice that some of the words shown are both masculine and feminine. This means that the spelling of that word does not change whether the, for example, dentist is a man or a woman. To distinguish whether the dentist is a man or a woman, then you would need to use the appropriate definite article. For example, el denista for a male dentist and la dentista for a female dentist. Sometimes these types of words are also referred to as being either neutral words or non-gender specific words.

Another example has to do with policeman. It is policía for both policeman and policewoman. In order to distinguish the gender you would use the definite article so that la policía means policewoman while el policía means policeman. The base word, policía, does not change.

In addition, please take note that the Spanish word for president, i.e., presidente is also considered to be a neutral or non-gender specific word. To specify if the president is male you would say el presidente and if you were to specify that the president as a female then you would say la presidente. However, if you change the ending letter e to the letter a making it read as presidenta, rather than being a female president you would be referring to the president’s wife or the First Lady. Some Spanish cultures actually do use presidenta to refer to a female president but generally as a president of a society or group or council so please be aware of this. For this quiz, we will stick to presidente.

Be Sure to Study

Take time to study this new vocabulary list, along with the spelling of each word. Make certain you are aware of any accent marks that may be used. Accent marks are critical to what a word means and where a letter needs specific emphasis. As soon as you feel confident with your new ocupación list, tackle the ten quiz questions to see how well you can do with your new Spanish vocabulary words. You will be looking for either the Spanish translation or the English translation of the all capitalized words.