Continuing our series of blog posts on Spanish nouns that can be either masculine or feminine depending on meaning we look at radio.
You can listen to the pronunciation of radio in the audio clip below:
One of the fist exceptions that students learn to the rule that Spanish nouns ending in -o are masculine is la radio (feminine), meaning radio:
Antonio encendió la radio.
Antonio switched on the radio.
¿Escucha la radio?
Are you listening to the radio?
Me he enterado por la radio.
I heard about it on the radio.
una radio de onda corta
a short-wave radio
So saying, the gender of radio (radio) isn’t quite so simple. While the more abstract senses of radio (the broadcasts, the medium) are always feminine, the physical device is treated as masculine in much of Latin America:
Acabo de oírlo en el radio.
I’ve just heard it on the radio.
El radio (masculine) has quite a few other meanings too. It can be the radioactive metallic element radium:
Marie Curie descubrió el radio.
Marie Curie discovered radium.
El radio can be a straight line from the centre of a circle (or sphere) to its circumference (or surface) and the length of this; in other words, the radius:
El radio es la mitad del diámetro.
The radius is half the diameter.
Like radius, el radio is not limited to geometric circles. It can be the distance in any direction from a central point:
Abrasó todo aquello situado dentro de un radio de tres kilómetros.
It incinerated everything within a three-kilometre radius.
And still on the topic of circles of sorts, el radio can also be the spoke of a wheel:
Se habían torcido algunos de los radios de su rueda delantera.
Some of the spokes of her front wheel had bent.
Anatomically, el radio can be the radius in your forearm (the shorter of the two bones that connect your elbow to your wrist):
Se rompió el cúbito y el radio.
He broke his ulna and radius.
Don’t forget to make any articles and adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they modify:
Había dejado la radio puesta.
He had left the radio on.
Las ruedas elegidas por los ciclistas profesionales carecen de los típicos radios metálicos.
The wheels chosen by professional cyclists lack the typical metal spokes.
To read about another noun that can be either masculine or feminine in Spanish depending on the sense, come back next week.
