Gender is a linguistic category. Each noun in the Czech language has a gender. It is important to understand this concept as other grammatical phenomenon (ie. form of adjectives, declensions) depend on the gender of the noun. There are three genders:
masculine
feminine
neuter
In addition to these, masculine can be either animate or inanimate.
masculine animate (Ma): refers to what is alive (people and animals, e.g.Emir, fotograf, pes)
masculine inanimate (Mi): refers to what is not alive (things and places, e.g. hotel, supermarket)
How to determine gender?
1/ names of people and animals - these words usually follow the "natural gender", for example:
masculine: Adam (male name), pes (dog), muž (man), student (male student), učitel (male teacher)
feminine: Anna (female name), žena (woman), kočka (cat)
2/ other nouns
Gender of these nouns is determined based on the ending of the word, that is on the last letter of the word. Typical endings are as follows:
masculine: consonant (Adam, hotel,park)
feminine: a or e/ě (Anna, pošta, restaurace, kolegyně)
neuter: o or í (auto, metro, nádraží)
Less typical endings are:
masculine: a (kolega)
feminine: consonant (usually a soft one - kancelář, tramvaj)
neuter: iště (parkoviště)
The rules for determining the gender of the noun are more complicated but for now, this basic rule is sufficient for us.