Faux Genders

Spanish and French, both being Romance languages, have a gender attribute to their nouns. Also, being related, many words have the same origin. These are called cognates. In French, cognates that don't have the same meaning as their source are called faux amis. Having studied French before Spanish, and not ever having been good at remembering what gender a given noun was in French, I found it convenient to rely on Spanish when I needed a noun's gender, since remembering a noun's gender in Spanish is as simple as learning only a few rules and a handful of exceptions. However, it turns out that not all French-Spanish cognates have the same gender, though probably well over 90% do.

Here's a small compilation of exceptions that Jonathan North Washington, Hannah Beth Washington, and George M.F. Brown have been able to collect.

Faux Genders

English	French	Spanish	Portuguese	Italian	Romansh	Latin
colour	la couleur	el color	a cor	il colore	la colur	color (masc)
pain	la douleur	el dolor	a dor	il dolore		dolor (masc)
shelf	l'étagère (fem)	el estante	a estante
flower	la fleur	la flor	a flor	il fiore	la flur	flos (masc)
bridge	le pont	el puente	a ponte	il ponte	la punt	pons (masc)
tree	l'arbre (masc)	el árbol	a árvore	l'albero (masc)		arbor (fem)
inch	le pouce	la pulgada	a polegada	il pollice	il polesch
ice	la glace	el hielo	o gelo	il ghiaccio	il glatsch	glacies (fem)
minute	la minute	el minuto	o minuto	il minuto	la minuta
sea	la mer	el mar	o mar	il mare	la mar	mare (neut)
blood	le sang	la sangre	o sangue	il sangue	il sang	sanguis (masc)
milk	le lait	la leche	o leite	il latte	il latg	lactus (masc)
salt	le sel	la sal	o sal	il sale	il sal	sal (masc)
glass	la vitre	el vidrio	o vidro	il vetro	il vaider	vitrum (neut)
car	l'auto (fem)	el auto	o auto	l'auto (fem)	l'auto (masc)
tomato	la tomate	el tomate	o tomate		la tomata
end	la fin	el fin	o fim	(il/la) fine ???	la fin	finis (masc)

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