| Let's look at the sentence pattern. |
| This pattern is the structure that all of our examples will follow. |
| The singular pattern is ¿Cuánto cuesta [noun phrase]? |
| "How much does [noun phrase] cost?" |
| And its plural counterpart is ¿Cuánto cuestan [plural noun phrase]? How much do [plural noun phrase] cost? |
| This pattern requires a noun phrase in which a demonstrative adjective, whose gender depends on the following noun, precedes a noun. |
| To use this pattern, simply replace the [noun phrase] placeholder with the thing you want to know the price of. |
| Please note that cuesta becomes cuestan to match the plural subject when the item is plural. |
| Let's see how a line from the dialogue follows this pattern. |
| Disculpe, ¿Cuánto cuesta esa pintura? |
| "Excuse me, how much does that painting cost?" |
| In this sentence: |
| Disculpe means "Excuse me" and isn't a part of the pattern. |
| Next is ¿Cuánto cuesta?, which means "How much does it cost?" |
| Cuánto means "how much," and cuesta comes from the verb costar, meaning "to cost." |
| Cuesta is the third-person singular form, which is used for singular nouns. |
| Next is the demonstrative adjective esa, meaning "that." |
| The last word of our sentence is pintura, meaning "painting." Since it is a feminine singular noun, esa is the correct demonstrative adjective. |
| So, the full sentence Disculpe, ¿Cuánto cuesta esa pintura? means, "Excuse me, how much does that painting cost?" |
| Now, you can use this structure to ask about the price of anything when shopping in any Spanish-speaking country! |
| In a shopping context, Spanish demonstrative adjectives help you specify which item you’re talking about based on location, gender, and number. |
| If an item is close to you, use este for masculine singular and esta for feminine singular. For plurals, go with estos and estas. |
| If an item is far from you, use ese for masculine singular and esa for feminine singular. For plurals, choose esos and esas. |
| Keep this in mind when asking about prices or pointing out items in a store! |
| Now let's look at some speaking examples. |
| ¿Cuánto cuesta esta cartera? |
| "How much does this wallet cost?" |
| Can you see how the pattern applies here? |
| Let's break it down: |
| ¿Cuánto cuesta?, means "How much does it cost?" |
| Since we're only talking about one item, we use cuesta, which means "costs" in this case. |
| Next, we have esta cartera, where esta is the demonstrative adjective meaning "this," and cartera is a singular feminine noun meaning "wallet." Notice that esta is used instead of este because of the noun's gender. |
| So, that is how ¿Cuánto cuesta esta cartera? follows the"¿Cuánto cuesta [noun phrase]?" pattern. |
| Here's another example |
| ¿Cuánto cuestan estos libros? |
| "How much do these books cost?" |
| We notice a pattern where ¿Cuánto cuestan? is followed by a plural noun phrase. |
| Now, let's see the structure. |
| Here, ¿Cuánto? means "How much?" and comes before cuestan, which means "to cost"—but since libros is plural, we use cuestan instead of cuesta. |
| Estos libros means "these books." Estos is the demonstrative adjective for plural masculine nouns, like libros, "books." |
| So, ¿Cuánto cuestan estos libros? perfectly follows the pattern ¿Cuánto cuestan [plural noun phrase]? |
| Let's try one more, |
| ¿Cuánto cuesta ese reloj? |
| "How much does that watch cost?" |
| ¿Cuánto cuesta ese reloj? |
| "How much does that watch cost?" |
| Another one. |
| ¿Cuánto cuestan esos calcetines? |
| "How much do those socks cost?" |
| ¿Cuánto cuestan esos calcetines? |
| "How much do those socks cost?" |
| One more. |
| ¿Cuánto cuesta este vestido? |
| "How much does this dress cost?" |
| ¿Cuánto cuesta este vestido? |
| "How much does this dress cost?" |
| One last example. |
| ¿Cuánto cuestan esas flores? |
| "How much do those flowers cost?" |
| ¿Cuánto cuestan esas flores? |
| "How much do those flowers cost?" |
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