Adjectives
Adjectives are words that describe nouns. Funny, interesting, neat, big, tall, fat, long, and boring are all adjectives. We use these words often to describe people, places, and things. While adjectives do the same thing in Spanish as they do in English, there are some differences that you need to be aware of in order to communicate effectively.
- Adjectives are placed after that the noun.
In English, we put adjectives before the noun. For example: The red car is mine.
In Spanish, however, this sentence would be written as el coche rojo es mío. (literal translation: The car red is mine).
Red is an adjective describing the car. We put red before car in English; we put rojo after coche in Spanish. - Adjectives must agree with the gender of the noun.
Gender is referring to the noun being masculine or feminine. All nouns, living and non-living, have a gender in Spanish. Here's a little more information about gender that you will find helpful.
Example #1: El chico es gracioso y ordenado. (The boy is funny and organized.)
The noun in this sentence, el chico, is masculine. Therefore, all adjectives that describe him must also be masculine. We can look at the adjectives and see that they are in a masculine form; they all end in "o".
Example #2: La chica es graciosa y ordenada. (The girl is funny and organized.)
Now, the noun in this sentence, la chica, is feminine. Therefore, all adjectives describing the girl must also be feminine. We can see that they are, indeed, feminine as they all end in "a". (graciosa and ordenada). - Adjectives must agree in number with the noun.
Number is referring to singular and plural. A noun is considered singular if there is just one if it. If more than one exists, than it is plural.
In Spanish, adjectives are made plural if the noun in which they describe is plural.
Study the following examples of adjectives agreeing in both gender and number with the nouns they describe:
Example #1: El chico es gracioso y ordenado. (The boy is funny and organized.)
Singular, masculine noun; singular, masculine adjectives
Example #2: Los chicos son graciosos y ordenados. (The boys are funny and organized.)
Plural, masculine noun; plural, masculine adjectives
Example #3: La chica es graciosa y ordenada. (The girl is funny and organized.)
Singular, feminine noun; singular, feminine adjectives
Example #4: Las chicas son graciosas y ordenadas. (The girls are funny and organized.)
Plural, feminine noun; plural, feminine adjectives
But, what if... #1
But what if ... the sentence includes both a masculine noun and a feminine noun at the same time? Good question! A good rule of thumb with this, as well as everything else grammar-related in Spanish, is that the masculine gender always tends to be the default gender to use in cases where the genders are mixed.
Take a look at the following example:
El chico y la chica son graciosos y ordenados. (The boy and the girl are funny and organized.)
Notice two things here:
Take a look at the following example:
El chico y la chica son graciosos y ordenados. (The boy and the girl are funny and organized.)
Notice two things here:
- We are making all of the adjectives in the sentence plural because we referring to two or more nouns. Remember, adjectives must always agree in number with the nouns that they describe. By pluralizing our adjectives, we are ensuring that this rule is maintained.
- But, most interesting, notice that we are making all of the adjectives masculine, despite the presence of a girl in the sentence. This is because in Spanish anytime a male (or any other masculine noun) is mentioned in a sentence, all adjectives have to be in a masculine form. Even if we are talking about 10 million girls and one baby boy; all of the adjectives in the sentence must be in the masculine form. If you remove the baby boy from this example, then the adjectives will need to be changed to the feminine form.
But, what if... #2
But what if ... the adjectives end with an "e"? Do I need to change them to an "o" to make them masculine and/or to an "a" to make them feminine? Great question. The answer is NO!! The rule for adjectives that end with an "e" is that they apply to both masculine and feminine singular nouns. You do not change the ending to an "o" or an "a" to match the gender; they already match.
Example #1: Juan es un chico muy inteligiente. (Juan is a very intelligent boy.)
Example #2: María es una chica muy inteligente también. (Maria is a very intelligent girl also.)
Notice that the word inteligente, which ends with an "e", keeps the "e" ending in both of these sentences. Again, adjectives ending with an "e" describe both masculine and feminine singular nouns.
Example #1: Juan es un chico muy inteligiente. (Juan is a very intelligent boy.)
Example #2: María es una chica muy inteligente también. (Maria is a very intelligent girl also.)
Notice that the word inteligente, which ends with an "e", keeps the "e" ending in both of these sentences. Again, adjectives ending with an "e" describe both masculine and feminine singular nouns.
But, what if... #3
But what if ... the adjectives that end with an "e" is being used to describe a plural noun (or more than one noun)... do I still add an "s" to make it plural? ABSOLUTELY! The rule for making adjectives plural when the noun is plural remains unchanged. You just add an "s" as usual.
Example #1: Juan y María son chicos muy inteligentes. (Juan and Maria are very intelligent children.)
Example #2: Los documentos que están en la mesa son importantes. (The documents that are on the table are important.)
In the above two examples, we see that the adjectives "inteligente" and "importante" both end with "e". We are adding an "s" to both adjectives because both sentences contain plural nouns ("Juan y María" and "Los documentos")
Example #1: Juan y María son chicos muy inteligentes. (Juan and Maria are very intelligent children.)
Example #2: Los documentos que están en la mesa son importantes. (The documents that are on the table are important.)
In the above two examples, we see that the adjectives "inteligente" and "importante" both end with "e". We are adding an "s" to both adjectives because both sentences contain plural nouns ("Juan y María" and "Los documentos")