Lesson 27: Adjectives (Describing Words)
Any word we can put 'is' in front of - 'is red', 'is big' - is an adjective, a word that is used to describe something. Here's how they are handled in Spanish.
The first thing to know is that they usually go after the thing they are describing. So when we say in English "the global situation" in Spanish they would say "the situation global".
 Spanish |  English |
|---|---|
| La situación global | The global situation |
Just a couple of reminders about how we found the Spanish here.
- Global ends in 'al' and almost all words that do this in English are spelt the same (or nearly the same) in Spanish
- Situation is a 'tion' word so to get the Spanish most of the time all we need to do is take off the 'tion' and add 'ción'.
- 'ción' words are almost always feminine so we know it is 'la'.
OK, another example of an adjective
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| La cámara digital | The digital camera |
So 'la' is "the" and 'una' is "a" - this relationship of 'a' and feminine is clear here once again.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Quiero comprar una cámara digital | I want to buy a digital camera |
| Quiero comprar la cámara digital | I want to buy the digital camera |
| Quiero comprarla | I want to buy it (digital camera) |
Masculine/Feminine
We've talked before about how it is not objects that are masculine or feminine - 'lo' or 'la' - but words and a really good example of this is the Spanish for "car" because there are a number of ways to say this.
- 'Coche' - which comes from the word 'coach'
- 'Carro' - which comes from the word 'car'
- 'Auto' - which comes from the word 'automobile'
- 'Maquina' - which comes from the word 'machine' (and is also used to describe any other machine in general) ... and it ends in 'a' so we know its gender!
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| El coche | The car |
| Un coche | A car |
| La maquina | The machine |
| Una maquina | A machine |
| El carro | The car |
| Un carro | A car |
Describing the object - adjectives
"Big" in Spanish is 'grande' - like the English word "Grand".
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| La maquina grande | Le maquina grande |
| El auto grande | El auto grande |
There is no easier way to remember this order than by thinking about "The Rio Grande" (Wikipedia Page). 'Rio< means "River" so 'El Rio Grande' is quite literally "The big river". Not a very imaginative name but useful for us!
The first difference with adjectives in Spanish is that they become plural when we are talking about more than one thing just like "The" does.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| La casa | The house |
| Las casas | The houses |
| Las casas grandes | The big houses |
| El auto grande | The big car |
| Los autos grandes | The big cars |
| Los carros grandes | The big cars |
Note that while we can pluralise 'la' into 'las' quite easily 'el' is not so obvious and becomes 'los'.
Can you see / Do you see
In English we tend to use "Can" a lot more than in Spanish which works far more with "Do" which actually makes things simpler.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| ¿Ves el auto grande? | Do you see the big car? |
| ¿Puedes ver el coche grande? | Do you see the big car? |
Both will be perfectly understood in Spanish and you might find it easier to use the "Can" version when building a sentence. Nothing wrong with that but as you become more fluent and hear more Spanish you will move to the "Do" version because that is what you will hear.
So you might say:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| No puedo encontrarlo | I can't find it |
and you will be perfectly understood but a Spanish person would say:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| No lo encuentro | I don't find it |
Adjectives and "To Remain"
We covered "To remain" in a previous lesson so this is just a recap adding some more descriptive words.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Me quedo en el auto rojo | I'm staying in the red car |
| He comprado un auto rojo | I have bought a red car |
| Me he comprado un auto rojo | I have bought myself a red car |