Gender of bebé

[laepelba]

I wish there was a "new language learners" sub-forum. Most of the other questions I see posted here are much more advanced than where I am in my learning. I am using Rosetta Stone to begin learning Latin American Spanish.

I was working through my most recent lesson, which is all photo based. There was a photo of a woman with a baby (obviously a girl baby, pink sweater, hair in a cute little pig tail and so on). They have been really good about not showing ANY people of indeterminate gender. So I'm sure that the baby was a girl.

Anyway - the sentence that they were looking for was "Este es mi bebé." But I thought that "bebé" was like "policia". Doesn't the article change when the gender of the person is known? Like a female police officer is "LA policia" and a male officer is "EL policia". Isn't "bebé" the same - matching el o la with the gender of the actual baby, if known?

¡¡MUCHAS GRACIAS!!

[Jessica]

I think in Este es mi bebé you don't need the article

[laepelba]

You're RIGHT! I worded my question incorrectly. What I meant was if it should be "ESTE" or "ESTA". THANK YOU!!

[Jessica]

you're welcome ^_^

[laepelba]

But do you have an answer as to why it's "Este" and not "Esta"?

[Jessica]

well I think this
there isn't a gender rule thing for este and esta. I THINK it can be both...

[Rusty]

The word bebé is a masculine noun, no matter the actual sex of the infant.
Its definite article is el. Its indefinite article is un.
The word este is a masculine demonstrative pronoun. It was correctly used in your language course, because demonstrative pronouns must match gender.

Don't confuse sex (gender) with Spanish noun gender. Spanish noun gender should be thought of as noun type. There are two types of nouns in Spanish.
There is no noun gender in English. Using masculine and feminine as English labels for the Spanish noun types was a bad idea. We English speakers try to associate every object with a gender. That doesn't work very well, especially in a language where a dress is masculine (vestido) and a tie is feminine (corbata)!

Some will argue that bebé is both masculine and feminine, meaning that the article can be switched according to gender. You'll find evidence that supports this idea on the Internet. But, it isn't so in most places.
All the dictionaries I looked at say the word is masculine.

You usually use bebé when talking about a newborn or a suckling child. If you want to know what sex the baby is, you ask '¿Es niño o niña?' After you know what it is, then you can start using él or ella instead. This isn't any different than in English when we say, "What a beautiful baby!" "Is it a boy or a girl?"

[Jessica]

interesting I learned something. Hope you got it now, laepelba

[poli]

Some Caribbean people often use nene baby boy and nena for a baby girl, and completely avoid the use of bebé.

[lee ying]

here`s some examples words well known like BB.^_ ^
bebe; boy, el chico, el niño, el chamaco, el nene,
bebé: girl, la chica, la niña, la chamaca, la nena.

[CrOtALiTo]

I know above the word Bebe, my country on is mostly used the word Nene or bebesito, I don't know if you are finding the article of bebe as gender, but I believe that the word Bebe is a masculine gender.

Then you can use the whole sentence and built of this way, El bebe de mi hermana, or La bebe de mi hermana, the word bebe you can using of the two ways, and female and masculine way.

[sosia]

I usually use, like Rusty says, "Este es mi bebé", because bebí has a "neutral" use .
Really my child is a girl, so when I want to make it clear (sometimes is not easy to see gender in babys) I say "ella es mi bebé" or "El bebé es niña" or "El bebé se llama María" or, more simply, when somabody says "¡que guapo!" I correct "¡que guapa!"

Saludos

[Planet hopper]

Originally Posted by laepelba

I was working through my most recent lesson, which is all photo based. There was a photo of a woman with a baby (obviously a girl baby, pink sweater, hair in a cute little pig tail and so on). They have been really good about not showing ANY people of indeterminate gender. So I'm sure that the baby was a girl.

It does not matter. The baby is a baby, neuter gender, until it would start walking and talking and doing girly or manly things. Then it becomes niño or niña or nene-nena. There is no clear equivalent of the word toddler in Spanish. In european spanish, if you say 'la bebe', it will sound dialectal.

Originally Posted by laepelba

Anyway - the sentence that they were looking for was "Este es mi bebé." But I thought that "bebé" was like "policia". Doesn't the article change when the gender of the person is known? Like a female police officer is "LA policia" and a male officer is "EL policia". Isn't "bebé" the same - matching el o la with the gender of the actual baby, if known?

Please do not compare bebe and policia. Policia becomes feminine when it is used as a collective, as a group. A female officer is 'una agente de policia' (notice that by connected speech liasion, the a in una would not be pronounced). Una policia sounds strange, at least in european spanish. In Southamerica I have often read 'La bebita' used to refer to a female baby, but also to a cute young woman.

I agree with Sosia, personally, if you want to specify, feel free to correct the other person.

Instead of saying este es mi bebe, it sounds more natural to say aqui esta mi bebe. There is nothing wrong gramatically with este es mi bebe, but it is more often used if you are showing a picture and not carrying the actual baby.


I say this only as a user, I don't teach Spanish.

[laepelba]

Thanks, everyone, for the input! It is greatly appreciated.

So, my related question would be about the word "policía". The gender of that noun is male, correct? But if I am looking at a female police officer, ella es LA policía, correct?

Planet Hopper - our replies crossed paths. I am chasing down this line of questioning because my Spanish lessons lately are using the sentence structure: "este/esta/estos/estas es/estan __________" - where I am asked to choose one of the first words and match it with the accurate vocabulary for the blank. For example, shown a photo of a hat, I say "Este es un sombrero."

The confusion came up when I saw a photo of a baby (obviously a girl) and the correct answer was "Este es mi bebé." And in a different sentence structure, I saw policía as "el policía" and "la policía" depending on the gender of the person in the photo.

Because I'm an English speaker, I KNOW that these noun genders are something that will take a bit of work to get used to. I want to stay on top of them from the beginning.

[Planet hopper]

No, policia is a collective. Here in Europe we don't say el es un policia, we may say:

El o ella esta en la policia
El o ella es policia
El o ella trabaja en la policia

However, it is possible to say:

El o ella es un (o una) policia de paisano (o de estupefacientes)

I would bet the image for a police officer looks like a male, doesn't it?

Still two centing

If police knocks at your door, they'd say

Es la policia

In this context, gender is not considered at all, the noun is 100% collective, impossible to say

Es un o una policia

But possible to use la because here la means collective, not gender

In a nutshell, if the officer looks female, I would still say este es un policia, although in real life I'd say Esta es una agente de policia.

Postmodification of policia may allow el, as in:

Este es el policia de mi barrio (there is only one in the block)

In this last context la would sound strange because it is kinda booked for the collective

Wait! Last cent for the basket:

Este es el policia que tu hermana me presento (right)

Esta es la policia que tu hermana.... (wrong gramatically but understandable)

[laepelba]

Thanks for your Andalucian answer!

Does anyone have some Latin American input on the "policía" question?

Also, thanks for expanding, Planet Hopper.

[Rusty]

Es la policía is used in Latin America as a collective, too. In other words, the word represents the police department. In English, when the word is used that way, it is a singular noun used in the plural:
The police are investigating.
In Spanish, the word is a feminine noun, used in the singular:
La policía está investigando.

The word policeman or policewoman is also said policía in Spanish, but in this case the noun is either masculine or feminine, respective to the gender of the officer. The noun itself doesn't change, just the article (and all pronouns and adjectives that must match gender):
el policía = the policeman (police officer)
la policía = the policewoman (police officer) (may have to quickly add la mujer to make it clear you're referring to a female person)

[laepelba]

Thanks, Rusty! Greatly appreciate the latinoamericana answer.

[CrOtALiTo]

Yes, Rusty but the word policia would be said in way general without have clear the gender of the person in question, because my country on the people's police is lately police anymore, we are not saying if the police is women or male, then I don't know if on your country there is some kind of distinction, then if you are speaking only of the gender of the person with a range of police, I feel that is correcter if you say only the police.

It was only my view point.

[Tomisimo]

Concerning the word bebé, I have heard both el bebé and la bebé in Mexico.