Learn more about grammatical gender in Spanish
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Intro |
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| Michael: Do adjectives have gender in Spanish? |
| Cesar: And does noun gender influence adjectives? |
| Michael: At SpanishPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Mark Lee and Alejandra Flores Estrada are walking past a car dealership. After admiring some of the cars, Mark Lee says, |
| "I want a new car." |
| Mark Lee: Quiero un carro nuevo. |
| Dialogue |
| Mark Lee: Quiero un carro nuevo. |
| Alejandra Flores Estrada: Yo también. Quiero un carro rojo. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Mark Lee: Quiero un carro nuevo. |
| Michael: "I want a new car." |
| Alejandra Flores Estrada: Yo también. Quiero un carro rojo. |
| Michael: "Me too. I want a red car." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In Spanish, when adjectives are qualifying nouns, they must match, or "agree with," the nouns they are modifying in their gender, feminine or masculine, and number, singular or plural. Let's see this in an example: |
| Cesar: Un libro nuevo, |
| Michael: "a new book." Here, we see that the adjective "new," or |
| Cesar: nuevo, |
| Michael: agrees with the noun "book," or |
| Cesar: libro. |
| Michael: By this, we mean that the adjective is in the masculine singular form, just like the noun it is describing. As a general rule, whenever an adjective ends in an |
| Cesar: -o, |
| Michael: it is in the masculine singular form. To then convert that adjective into its feminine singular form, simply replace the final |
| Cesar: -o |
| Michael: with an |
| Cesar: -a. |
| Michael: For example, the same adjective "new" in Spanish has the feminine singular form |
| Cesar: nueva. |
| Michael: Thus, to say "a new house" in Spanish, which included the feminine noun |
| Cesar: casa, |
| Michael: or "house," we would say |
| Cesar: una casa nueva, |
| Michael: "a new house." |
| Michael: Note that the feminine singular adjective agrees with the feminine singular noun that it's describing. |
| Although that general rule can often be applied, there are also other adjectives, however, that have one single form for both genders. These are the adjectives that end in |
| Cesar: -e, -ista, |
| Michael: or a consonant. In the case of consonants, there are some exceptions which we'll mention later in this lesson, but let's start with an example of an adjective that ends with |
| Cesar: -e: Excelente, |
| Michael: "excellent." This Spanish adjective is used without any modification with either a feminine singular noun, as in |
| Cesar: una casa excelente, |
| Michael: "an excellent house," or a masculine singular noun, as in |
| Cesar: un libro excelente, |
| Michael: "an excellent book." |
| Let's now see an example of an adjective ending in |
| Cesar: -ista: Realista, |
| Michael: "realistic." As before, adjectives like this are used in the same form with both feminine and masculine nouns. As an example, with the feminine singular noun for "film," we have |
| Cesar: una película realista, |
| Michael: "a realistic film," and with the masculine singular noun "poem," we have |
| Cesar: un poema realista, |
| Michael: "a realistic poem." |
| Note here that although |
| Cesar: poema |
| Michael: ends in an |
| Cesar: -a, |
| Michael: it is a masculine noun, and thus it is an exception to the usual pattern. As such, it is paired in the example with the masculine singular article |
| Cesar: un. |
| Michael: Finally, let's see an example of an adjective that ends in a consonant: |
| Cesar: Fácil, |
| Michael: "easy." |
| As you might expect, this adjective also has just one form to be used with both feminine singular nouns, as in the phrase |
| Cesar: una tarea fácil, |
| Michael: "an easy task," or masculine singular nouns, as in the phrase |
| Cesar: un examen fácil, |
| Michael: "an easy exam." |
| Lastly, as adjectives also have to agree in number, singular or plural, with the noun they are describing, note that we can obtain the plural form of adjectives by adding an |
| Cesar: -s |
| Michael: if they end in a vowel or |
| Cesar: -es |
| Michael: if they end in a consonant. |
| For example, for the adjective "new," which we've seen earlier, the Spanish plural masculine form and plural feminine form are |
| Cesar: nuevos, nuevas. |
| Michael: In both cases, we just added the |
| Cesar: -s |
| Michael: at the end of the adjective, as the adjective ends in a vowel. |
| On the other hand, the Spanish adjective for "easy" has the plural form |
| Cesar: fáciles, |
| Michael: which ends in an |
| Cesar: -es. |
| Michael: In this case, since the adjective ends in a consonant, |
| Cesar: -l, |
| Michael: and has just one form for both masculine and feminine, we just add a final |
| Cesar: -es |
| Michael: to make it plural. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| To say "I want a new car." Mark Lee said, |
| Cesar: Quiero un carro nuevo. |
| Michael: As we've learned, when adjectives qualify nouns, they must agree with them in gender, feminine or masculine, and number, singular or plural. Therefore, the adjective "new" in the sentence is in the masculine singular form, |
| Cesar: nuevo, |
| Michael: in order to match the noun that it is qualifying, "car," which is also in the masculine singular form, |
| Cesar: carro. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Let's now take a look at Alejandra's response. |
| To say, "Me too. I want a red car." she said, |
| Cesar: Yo también. Quiero un carro rojo. |
| Michael: In this sentence, the adjective "red" is in the masculine singular form, |
| Cesar: rojo. |
| Michael: Again, this is to match the noun that it's qualifying, "car," which again is in the masculine singular form, |
| Cesar: carro. |
| Michael: Instead, if the noun was in the feminine singular form, such as "flower," or |
| Cesar: flor, |
| Michael: the adjective would need to be in the feminine singular form as well. If we use the adjective "red," which we saw in the previous example, we would have |
| Cesar: una flor roja, |
| Michael: "a red flower." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, we've learned that adjectives vary in gender, feminine or masculine, as well as in number, singular or plural. In addition, they must always agree with the noun that they describe or qualify. |
| Let's now look at some examples. Our first example is |
| Cesar: Le compré un vestido amarillo a mi hermana. |
| Michael: "I bought a yellow dress for my sister." In this sentence, the adjective "yellow" is in the masculine singular form, |
| Cesar: amarillo. |
| Michael: This is to match the gender, masculine, and number, singular, of the noun "dress" in Spanish, |
| Cesar: vestido. |
| Michael: Now consider the following sentence with a feminine singular noun: |
| Cesar: Le compré una bufanda amarilla a mi hermana. |
| Michael: "I bought a yellow scarf for my sister." Here, since "scarf," or |
| Cesar: bufanda, |
| Michael: is in the feminine singular form, the adjective "yellow" will also be in the feminine singular form to match it, |
| Cesar: amarilla. |
| Michael: Moving on, our next example is |
| Cesar: Quiero comprar algunas flores blancas. |
| Michael: "I want to buy some white flowers." In this example, the adjective "white" is in the plural feminine form, |
| Cesar: blancas. |
| Michael: This is because it has to match the noun, "flowers," which is also in the plural feminine form, |
| Cesar: flores. |
| Michael: As a final example, consider a sentence with a plural masculine noun, such as |
| Cesar: Hay muchos carros blancos en la calle. |
| Michael: "There are many white cars in the street." In that sentence, the noun "cars," or |
| Cesar: carros, |
| Michael: is in the plural masculine form, so it requires the adjective to also be plural and masculine. Thus, we have "white" in its plural masculine form: |
| Cesar: blancos. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Michael: We've learned that, in general, whenever an adjective ends in |
| Cesar: -o, |
| Michael: it is in the masculine singular form, and to change it into the feminine singular form, we replace the |
| Cesar: -o |
| Michael: with |
| Cesar: -a. |
| Michael: We've also learned that there are other adjectives that have a single form for both genders, such as the adjectives that end in |
| Cesar: -e, -ista, |
| Michael: or a consonant. As we've mentioned, there are some exceptions for consonants, which we will now go over. |
| Some adjectives of nationality, although ending in consonants in their masculine form, also have a feminine form. Let's see an example: |
| Cesar: Mi padre es español. |
| Michael: "My father is Spanish." In this case, although the adjective of nationality ends in a consonant, "-l," it also has a feminine form with an "-a" at the end, as we can see in the sentence, |
| Cesar: Mi madre es española. |
| Michael: "My mother is Spanish." |
| Here are a few more adjectives of nationality in Spanish: |
| Cesar: francés / francesa |
| Michael: French (masculine singular form) / French (feminine singular form), |
| Cesar: alemán / alemana |
| Michael: German (masculine singular form) / German (feminine singular form). |
| Practice Section |
| Michael: Let's review the sample conversation: Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud, and then listen carefully as Cesar models the correct answer. Repeat after him, with the focus on your pronunciation. Are you ready? |
| How do you say, "I want a new car." |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Cesar: Quiero un carro nuevo. |
| Michael: Did you get it right? Listen again and repeat. Remember to focus on your pronunciation. |
| Cesar: Quiero un carro nuevo. |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Cesar: Quiero un carro nuevo. |
| Michael: Let's move on to the second sentence. How do you say, "Me too. I want a red car." |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Cesar: Yo también. Quiero un carro rojo. |
| Michael: Did you get it right this time? Listen again and repeat. |
| Cesar: Yo también. Quiero un carro rojo. |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Cesar: Yo también. Quiero un carro rojo. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Michael: We can change the meaning of some adjectives by using them in their diminutive form. Let's see an example: |
| Cesar: No hay nada mejor que un café calentito en un día de lluvia. |
| Michael: "There is nothing better than a little hot coffee on a rainy day." In this example, the adjective "hot" was used in the diminutive form, |
| Cesar: calentito, |
| Michael: or literally, "little hot," instead of its regular form, |
| Cesar: caliente, |
| Michael: "hot." |
| The use of the diminutive form conveys the good feeling of having a nice warm cup of coffee on that particular occasion. It's used to show the speaker's emotion. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Cesar: ¡Hasta la próxima! |
| Michael: Until next time! |
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