"The waiter speaks Portuguese."
Translation:El camarero habla portugués.
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Actually, waiter is regarded as a gender-neutral term, because we use it when we aren't sure whether we're being served by a man or a woman (and there are obvious situations where this happens).
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How can waiter be a gender-neutral term then? Well, that isn't so important. What's achievable here is quite simple: The expansion of a language according to the needs of the people who speak it. Obviously that isn't a gender relevant thing, it's relevancy based on current needs of expression. Makes no sense to restrict a language, it's vocabulary, to the level of one small fraction of speakers, when both English and Spanish belong to the most wide spread languages on this planet.
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PX, 'waiter' can be gender-neutral because in English (and Spanish under certain circumstances), the masculine form of a noun/ pronoun does double-duty, representing not only males, but also females, when the person's gender is unknown. You should know this already.
None of that has anything to do with restricting the vocabulary of English or Spanish, and that would be obvious to anyone who wasn't trolling.
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We are translating from English to Spanish. In Spanish it matters, if you say camarera or camarero. That is as easy as it can get. Obviously that has nothing to do with trolling.
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Yes, it does have to do with trolling. If you read what I said closely, you'll notice that I said that camarero is gender-neutral in Spanish under specific circumstances. Your observation that it is the Spanish which matters says absolutely nothing against my last post.
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Sounds absurd to speak for women like that. I'd ask first. Additionally it is an achievement of language to be able to visualize differences wherever possible.
I'm not speaking for anyone. This is not a discussion of how things should be, just of how they are. 'Waiter' can refer to a waiter of any gender and the app should reflect that.
It's worth having different words for important or relevant differences but there's no more point having a special word for a female waiter as there is for a tall waiter (waitall?) or a shy waiter (washyter?) or a black waiter (blaiter?). 'Waitress' is not an achievement, it's superfluous at best. However, we have it and it should be accepted for this answer. Because that's what this discussion is actually about.
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This is not an advertisement for another Spanish learning app/site, but the link I will provide has the rules for the masculine/feminine issue that seems to be prevalent here. Skip through the advertising portions of the page and just read the 8 rules.
As to whether a female can be called a waiter, not in Spanish. If you are staring at her and you definitely know the gender, then she is a waitress. If there is a room of wait staff of mixed genders, then in Spanish they are waiters.
they could have given me a pass on the spelling of the word portuguese