Adjective

From Tomísimo

An adjective (adjetivo in Spanish) is a word that modifies, or describes another word, namely a noun. In the sentence "That is a big red barn", 'big' and 'red' are adjectives that modify, describe or quantify the noun 'barn'. In English, adjectives normally go before the noun they modify, but in Spanish, they usually go after the noun. The red car. - El coche rojo. Some adjectives, such as the demonstratives and determiners, are normally used before the noun. Some adjectives can go before or after the noun, but with a difference in meaning.

Types of adjectives

There are different types of adjectives, such as:

• Comparative adjectives
• Demonstrative adjectives (this, that, these, those - esto, eso, estos, esos)
• Indefinite adjectives (many, some, all - muchos, algunos, todos)
• Interrogative adjectives (when, where, why, who, how - cuándo, dónde, por qué, quién, cómo)
• Possessive adjectives (my, your, his, our, their - mi, tu, su, nuestro, sus)
• Superlative adjectives

Adjectives in Spanish

In Spanish, adjectives must agree in number and person with the noun they modify. First let's attack that word modify. It means that the adjective is describing the noun in some fashion. It's giving us some piece of information about the noun it's near. So let's examine some rules of using adjectives in Spanish.

Adjective placement

Adjectives normally are placed after the noun they modify, which is normally the opposite of English adjectives. In the following example, casa is the noun (house), and roja is the adjective (red).

Agreement in number

Main article: Number

This means that the adjective morphs (the actual word changes form) to agree with the noun. In English a noun agrees with the actual number of objects that it's representing. If I say I have one eye, and you say I have two, you use the word eyes. The English plural is an example of the word changing to agree in number with the actual objects represented. There are languages where this doesn't take place-- where it would be one eye and two eye-- the plurality is not encoded into the noun, rather, the adjective one or two adequately represents that information. So, we understand the concept of agreement. Spanish takes this concept a bit further than English does.

In English, the noun house changed when the number of houses did, but the adjective red did not change.

In Spanish, both nouns and adjectives change when the number changes, to encode the information about plurality.

Agreement in gender

Main article: Gender

Spanish adjectives also agree in gender with the noun they modify or describe. Imagine there are two arbitrary adjectives - rede and redu - for our word red. Also imagine a rule that states that the rede form is only used when the noun it modifies ends in the letter e and the latter is used only with nouns that end in the letter u. According to the rules we've invented, a noun like booke would take the rede adjective and a noun like lampu would require redu. Another rule insists that articles also agree in gender. According to our invented rules, the following would be a properly-formed sentence:

That's how agreement in gender works in Spanish. Your task is to learn which of the two adjective forms a noun requires and match them up.

Here is the same sentence written above, but in Spanish this time. See if you can find both adjective forms for the word red in the sentence. Can you also find the matching articles?

Formation

How to form Spanish adjectives, the plural and feminine versions.

Special cases

Adjectives that change meaning depending on if they are placed before or after the noun.

See also

• Gender
• Number