Mastering Spanish Adjectives

In this lesson of the Learn Spanish course, you'll learn how to use adjectives in the Spanish language. You’ll also learn several useful sentence templates that will help you describe people and objects more effectively.

This lesson includes a list of common Spanish adjectives, along with online flashcards and a quiz to reinforce your learning.

Understanding Spanish Adjectives

Adjectives are words that are used to describe or provide extra information about a noun or pronoun. Most adjectives describe qualities or attributes of a noun, but some describe quantity, such as poco, alguno, mucho, and todo.

Spanish adjectives are a bit more complex than English adjectives. While English adjectives typically have only one form, Spanish adjectives change depending on the gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) of the noun they modify. In most cases, adjectives follow the noun they describe.

The following rules will help in using Spanish adjectives correctly.

Many adjectives end in o when referring to a singular masculine noun and a when referring to a singular feminine noun.
Adjectives that end in an e or a consonant, have the same form for masculine and feminine nouns.
When referring to a plural noun, adjectives add an s or es to the end.

Examples

El hombre enojado	The angry man
Los hombres enojados	The angry men
La mujer enojada	The angry woman
Las mujeres enojadas	The angry women
La mujer feliz	The happy woman
Las mujeres felices	The happy women
El hombre feliz	The happy man
Los hombres felices	The happy men
Tu amiga está cansada.	Your friend (female) is tired.
Tu amigo está cansado.	Your friend (male) is tired.

Adjectives that Precede a Noun

A few adjectives come before the noun they modify, such as mucho (much) and poco (few, little). Alguno (some) and ninguno (not any, no) also often come before the noun they modify. When alguno and ninguno come before a singular masculine noun, they are shortened to algún and ningún.

The adjective grande means great when it precedes a noun and big when it follows a noun. When preceding a singular noun, grande is shortened to gran.

Examples

pocas personas	few people
pocos niños	few children
mucho trabajo	a lot of work
muchas mujeres	many women
una gran mujer	a great woman
un gran hombre	a great man
grandes hombres	great men
una taza grande	a big cup
el primer piso	the first floor
algunas personas	some people
ningún hombre	no man
ningunos hombres	no men

Useful Spanish Adjectives

Here is a list of some very common Spanish adjectives. Since these are very common words, it is a good idea to memorize them.

agradable	kind, nice
alto	tall
amable	friendly, nice
ancho	wide
áspero	rough
bajo	low
blando	soft
brillante	bright
bueno	good
caliente	hot
cansado	tired
claro	light (not dark)
cómodo	comfortable
correcto	right (correct)
corto	short, brief
delgado	thin
difícil	hard (difficult)
duro	hard
enojado	angry
estrecho	narrow
fácil	easy
feliz	happy
frío	cold
fuerte	strong, loud
grande	big
grueso	thick, course
hermoso	beautiful
incorrecto	wrong
interesante	interesting
joven	young
largo	long
lento	slow
ligero	light (not heavy)
limpio	clean
liso	smooth
lleno	full
malo	bad
mojado	wet
nuevo	new
oscuro	dark
pequeño	small
pesado	heavy
rápido	fast
ruidoso	noisy
seco	dry
sucio	dirty
tranquilo	quiet
triste	sad
vacío	empty
viejo	old

Sentence Templates

Here are some useful sentence templates that you can use with adjectives. Learning these along with some common Spanish adjectives will greatly increase your ability to communicate in Spanish. Practice combining these sentence templates with the adjectives included in this lesson to help you remember them.

Note: All questions start with a ¿ and end with a ?.

Estoy ___.	I am ___. (emotional state, temporary condition)
Soy ___.	I am (more permanent attributes)
Estoy muy ___.	I am very ___.
Estoy demasiado ___.	I am too ___.
¿Estás ___?	Are you ___? (familiar)
Es ___.	It is ___.
Es muy ___.	It is very ___.
Es demasiado ___.	It is too ___.
Ella es ___.	She is ___. (more permanent condition)
Él está ___.	He is ___. (emotional state, temporary condition)
Me siento ___.	I feel ___.
Se siente muy ___.	He/She feels very ___.
Parece tan ___.	It seems so ___.
Parece demasiado ___.	It seems too ___.

Examples

Estoy feliz.	I am happy.
Estoy muy frío.	I am very cold. (male)
Soy vieja.	I am old. (female)
Soy demasiado viejo.	I am too old. (male)
¿Estás cansado?	Are you tired? (to a male)
Ella está demasiado ruidosa.	She is too noisy.
Él es alto.	He is tall.

Flashcards

Here are some flashcards to help you learn the adjectives included in this lesson.

Spanish Adjectives Quiz

Here is a quiz to help you learn the Spanish adjectives included in this lesson. For each question, write out the sentence using the Spanish word for the adjective in parentheses.

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