Grammar Rules: Gender: As a general rule, nouns are feminine if they end in: -a, -ción, -gión, -sión, -tión, -xión, -dad, -tad, -tud, -ez, -triz, -umbre As a general rule, nouns are masculine if they end in: -o, -ma, -pa, and sometimes -ta , or begin with al- Here's an "enlace" to the whole list: http://www.e-spanyol.hu/en/grammar/gender.php
c,g followed by a,o,u is a hard sound (casa, barco, culebra) (gasolina, gol, guante) c,g followed by e,i is a soft sound (centavo, cine) (gente, gimnasio) z can never be followed by e,i z can be pronounced like an <s> or <th> depending on the country and accent
Accent Rules: 1. Words ending in a vowel,-n, or -s are stressed on the next-to-last syllable: nada, limonada, clases, grande zapatos, origen, compro, estas. 2. Words ending in a consonant, except -n or -s, are stressed on the last syllable: doctor, ciudad, comer. 3. When rules #1 and #2 are not followed, a written accent is used: compró, está, estás. 4. Written accents are also used to differentiate between words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings: sí=yes si=if, mi=my mí=me, el=the él=he/it, tu=your tú=you, aun=even, aún=still. 5. Sometimes a singular accented word loses its accent when it is made plural: almacén-almacenes, lección-lecciones. 6. Sometimes a plural word loses an accent when it is made singular: jóvenes-joven.
Pronoun Placement Rules: (memorize these!) 1. in front of a conjugated verb 2. attached to an infinitive 3. attached to a gerund 4. attached to a positive command 5. in front of a negative command