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Spanish greetings
How to say hello and goodbye
Question words in Spanish
Who? What? When? Where? Why? How to ask questions in Spanish
Formal vs. Informal "You"
The two kinds of address and when to use each one
Spanish plurals
How to get more than one of something
Definite and indefinite articles
The difference between "the" and "a", and how to say these in Spanish
Negating statements
How to say you don't know what you're doing
Adjectives in Spanish
Where to put them and how to use them
Ser vs Estar: The two kinds of "to be"
How to know when to say yo soy vs. when to say yo estoy.
Weather vocabulary
The ultimate icebreaker
Feelings and moods
How to talk about how you're feeling using the verbs estar and sentirse
Spanish false cognates ("false friends")
9 Spanish words that seem similar to English, but are actually dangerously different
Telling the time
How to ask and give the time in Spanish
¿Dónde está? or ¿Dónde hay?
How to know whether to use estar or haber when talking about something's existence
Comparisons of inequality
Bigger, smaller, faster, slower: How to compare two things and use superlatives in Spanish
Directions in Spanish
How to ask directions, and a few common prepositions that will help you get there
Being sore or sick
How to talk about illnesses and afflictions in Spanish

Adjectives in Spanish

Where to put them, and how to use them

Adjectives are describing words. (Or to be more technical: They are words placed next to a noun to modify or affect its meaning.) They're what turn a weekend into a sunny weekend, a cake into a decadent chocolate cake.

(They can also turn your chocolate cake into their chocolate cake, and then you'll have to share it. Adjectives giveth, and they taketh away.)

If you like sunny weekends and chocolate cake then there are just a couple of slight tricks to getting these adjectives right in Spanish.

Where to put Spanish adjectives

In English, adjectives always come before the thing they're describing, like this:

  • I met a tall boy

In Spanish, however, they usually come after the thing they're talking about.

Tall boy
Play
chico alto
I met a tall boy
Play
Conocí a un chico alto

Pretty simple, right? There's just one extra thing to remember...

Gender and quantity

Our old friends, gender and quantity, pop up again to meddle in our affairs. Depending on whether a noun is masculine or feminine, and whether you're talking about one thing or lots of things, your adjectives might also undergo a slight alteration.

Adjectives that end in -a or -o

The general rule is that if your adjective ends in an -o or an -a, it will change to match the gender and quantity of the thing it's talking about. That means adding an -o to describe masculine nouns, or switching to an -a for feminine nouns. And whenever there's a plural, chuck on an -s as well.

Take our tall boy from earlier...

I met a tall boy
Play
Conocí a un chico alto
I met some tall boys
Play
Conocí a unos chicos altos
I met a tall girl
Play
Conocí a una chica alta
I met some tall girls
Play
Conocí a unas chicas altas

(Note that you could put a personal pronoun "Yo" at the start of the sentences above, but it's not really necessary. In most situations, people will leave it out.)

Adjectives that end something else

The pattern above applies to almost all adjectives. If an adjective doesn't end in an -o or -a (probably because it ends in an -e), then it doesn't need to change to match the noun.

Play
José compró una corbata verde
Jose bought a green tie
Play
Ana compró un abrigo verde
Ana bought a green coat

See what happened there? The adjective is verde (green). It ends in an -e, so it doesn't change to match the feminine corbata (tie), nor the masculine abrigo (coat).

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Free Spanish Lessons

Spanish greetings
Question words in Spanish
Formal vs. informal "you"
Spanish plurals
Definite and indefinite articles in Spanish
Negating statements
How to use adjectives in Spanish
Ser vs Estar: The two kinds of "to be"
Weather vocabulary!
Feelings and moods
Telling the time
¿Dónde está? or ¿Dónde hay?
Comparisons of inequality
Directions in Spanish
Being sore or sick

Spanish Children's Stories

Pollito Tito
Chicken Little
El Pájaro y la Ballena
The Bird and the Whale
Los Tres Cerditos
The Three Little Pigs
Ricitos de Oro y Los Tres Osos
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Caperucita Roja
Little Red Riding Hood
Spanish false cognates ("false friends")

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