Nouns with Exceptional Genders
So far, I am only aware of Spanish nouns that have unexpected genders.
- Nouns ending with "a" that are masculine
- Nouns ending with "o" that are feminine
Some words with unexpected genders can be explained by the fact that the word was derived from another word.
The word "foto" is feminine, even though it ends with "o", because "foto" is short for "fotographia". When the word was shortened, it retained the original gender.