Learn Spanish Adjectives

Adjectives in Spanish, like in English, are used to modify - or describe - nouns. in English, adjectives go in front of the noun, like in the phrase "a pretty woman", in which "woman" is the noun and "pretty" is the adjective that describes her. Adjectives can also be turned into superlatives to emphasize descriptive qualities even more.

Spanish adjectives 1) almost always go AFTER the nouns that they are describing and 2) agree in terms of both the number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine and feminine) of the noun. For example:

While you will usually see the adjective after the noun, you may come across adjectives that come BEFORE the noun, similar to the construction in English. This is the case especially with adjectives like numbers (tres caballos - three horses) and adjectives of quantity (muchos caballos - many horses). For example:

Sometimes, adjectives can be used as a noun, when the person talking and the person listening are both aware of what is being talked about. In English, we might say "I like the green one", when referring to a green shirt that we see. For example:

1. Regular adjectives

• Adjectives ending in: -o, -a, -os, -as

Examples:

2. Adjectives with two forms

• Adjectives ending in: -e, -ista, or a consonant in the singular form. They are the same in the masculine and feminine forms; the only thing that changes is the number (singular, plural).
  To make the adjective plural,
  • add an -s if the it ends in an unstressed vowel
  • add -es if it ends in either in a consonant or in -í or -ú.

Examples:

3. Adjectives with special feminine forms

• Adjectives describing nationality whose masculine singular form ends in a consonant, as well as adjectives ending in -dor have feminine forms ending in -a and -as.

4. Adjectives with shortened or contracted forms

• Some adjectives function much like the indefinite article "un" (which means a or an in English), and therefore have a special form exclusively when preceding a masculine singular noun. If the adjective is anywhere other than right before the masculine singular noun, the regular adjective forms are used.

For example: