TOPIC: Spanish GCSE Grammar-Nouns, Gender (masculine and feminine), singular and plural
Welcome to the first episode of our story “Constance e Imran”. In every blog you will always find the same format:
- The story episode in Spanish.
- The translation into English.
- A grammar explanation with examples from the story.
This way you can practise reading, understanding and grammar, all at the same time.
This is the story of Constance and Imran, two teenagers in a British school. They are friends, and like you they face things that matter: friends, bullying, family problems, identity, growing up. At the start, the Spanish is simple. As you learn more, the story will get deeper and more exciting.
EPISODIO 1 – La mesa pequeña
La cantina está llena. Hay mesas y voces. Constance está sola en una mesa con agua y un sándwich. En la mesa hay un libro. Imran llega con comida y un cuaderno. No hay mesas libres. Él mira la mesa de Constance.
«¿Puedo?», dice Imran.
Constance mira el libro.
«Sí», dice ella.
Dos silencios. Dos sándwiches. La mesa es pequeña pero la historia es grande y empieza aquí. Y en otra mesa, alguien los mira.
EPISODE 1 – The Small Table
The canteen is full. There are tables and voices. Constance is alone at a table with water and a sandwich. On the table there is a book. Imran arrives with food and a notebook. There are no free tables. He looks at Constance’s table.
“Can I?” says Imran.
Constance looks at the book.
“Yes,” she says.
Two silences. Two sandwiches. The table is small, but the story is big, and it starts here. And, at another table, someone is watching them.
GRAMMAR
In many languages, for example in Spanish, words are divided into feminine and masculine. This is easy with el niño, la niña (the boy, the girl), but not so easy with el libro, la mesa (the book, the table).
Why is libro masculine and mesa feminine? There is no logic. It’s simply part of the grammar: in Spanish every word is either feminine or masculine. And if we want to speak Spanish, it’s the first thing we must always remember. Especially because this is not the case in English.
Our first rule is this: generally, words ending in -a are feminine and words ending in -o are masculine. I said generally, because there are exceptions, but we will study those in another blog. Let’s look at some examples from our story:
| Feminine words | Masculine words |
| Cantina | Libro |
| Mesa | Cuaderno |
| Comida | Silencio |
Finally, let’s learn singular (only one thing) and plural (more than one thing). It’s similar to English, adding -s or -es at the end of the words, but it is not exactly the same. For this, I have prepared a video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSHrbcvL9h8&t=7s
TIP: in the story we have hay un libro (there is a book) and no hay mesas libres (there are no free tables).
Remember: in Spanish we use just one word —hay— for both there is and there are.
Find all the episodes here: https://spanishforlondon.com/2025/08/29/contents-gcse-spanish/
One-to-one lessons via Zoom. Highly qualified native teacher with 30 years of experience. Contact me at laura@spanishforlondon.com
We post two new episodes every week — keep up with Constance and Imran’s story!
