Spanish Art & Culture Vocabulary

Spanish Art & Culture Vocabulary: the list

Gender: m. masculine · f. feminine · n. neuter · c. common

Tips

• Don't trust word endings blindly: museo and templo are masculine as you'd expect, but virgen is feminine even though it ends in a consonant.
• Nouns ending in -ción, -dad, and -ía are reliably feminine, and this list has several: iniciación, antigüedad, and brujería all follow the pattern, so use the ending as a shortcut to the gender.
• Borrowed words take whatever gender Spanish assigns them, so learn them as fixed pairs: el ballet, el zombi, la ópera.
• Peli and película are both feminine and both mean movie, but peli is the casual spoken short form; use película in writing or formal contexts.
• When you drill this list, say or picture the article together with the noun rather than the noun alone; it's the fastest way to lock in gender for words like orquesta, concierto, or cultura.
• Group words by the scene they belong to, such as museo, artista, pintar, estilo for visual art, or concierto, orquesta, ópera, tango for music, so you can build whole sentences around one topic.

Frequently asked questions

Is artista masculine or feminine in Spanish?

It is listed here as feminine (la artista). The same form is used for men and women, with only the article changing (el artista, la artista); the noun itself keeps the same spelling.

What's the difference between película and peli?

Both mean movie and both are feminine, but peli is a shortened, informal version used in everyday speech, while película is the standard form for writing and formal contexts.

Why is virgen feminine if it doesn't end in -a?

Spanish gender isn't always predictable from the ending. Virgen is a feminine noun (la virgen) despite ending in a consonant, so it's worth memorising with its article rather than guessing.

More Spanish

Learn Spanish · Words · Nouns · Verbs · Adjectives · Adverbs · Catalan vs Spanish: nearly identical words · Czech vs Spanish: nearly identical words · Danish vs Spanish: nearly identical words · Dutch vs Spanish: nearly identical words · French vs Spanish: nearly identical words · Indonesian vs Spanish: nearly identical words · Italian vs Spanish: nearly identical words · Norwegian vs Spanish: nearly identical words · Polish vs Spanish: nearly identical words · Portuguese vs Spanish: nearly identical words · Romanian vs Spanish: nearly identical words · How many Spanish words do you need? · Spanish words you already know · 200 most common feminine Spanish nouns · 200 most common masculine Spanish nouns · Spanish Talking & Communication vocabulary · Spanish Describing Things vocabulary · Spanish Emotions & Personality vocabulary · Spanish Family & People vocabulary · Spanish Food & Drink vocabulary · Spanish Health & the Body vocabulary · Spanish Home & Daily Life vocabulary · Spanish Money & Finance vocabulary · Spanish Nature & Animals vocabulary · Spanish School & Learning vocabulary · Spanish Shopping & Clothes vocabulary · Spanish Politics, Law & Society vocabulary · Spanish Sport & Leisure vocabulary · Spanish Technology & Media vocabulary · Spanish Time, Weather & Seasons vocabulary