Over the last few weeks you have seen a few video lessons about adjectives as part of our series Lecciones con Carolina. So you probably know by now that one of the most challenging aspects of Spanish adjectives is that they must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. Having this in mind, we have prepared for you a brief review on how adjectives are built in Spanish.
In Spanish, adjectives that end in -o have four forms. We have singular masculine adjectives ending in -o, and singular feminine ending in -a:
Es un gasto económico muy alto para la fundación.
Is a very high economic expense for the foundation.
Caption 28, Animales en familia - Adopta a Pino
Play Caption
¡Qué casa más bonita tienen tus abuelos! ¿eh?
What a beautiful house your grandparents have! huh?
Caption 47, 75 minutos - Gangas para ricos
Play Caption
The corresponding plural adjectives end in -os, for the masculine:
En el bulevar de los sueños rotos
On the boulevard of broken dreams
Caption 1, Joaquin Sabina - Por el Boulevar de los Sueños Rotos
Play Caption
and in -as, for the feminine:
Es una tonta ésa,
She's a dumb, that one,
como todas las tontas que se meten con Ivo.
like all the dumb ones who get involved with Ivo.
Captions 38-39, Muñeca Brava - 45 El secreto
Play Caption
We also have Spanish adjectives that end in -e. They only have two forms, -e for singular and -es for plural. Here is an example of an adjective ending in -e in the singular form that is used to modify the feminine noun fuerza (strength):
...anatómicamente y tienen fuerza física suficiente.
...anatomically when they already have enough physical strength.
Caption 42, Centro de Recuperación de la Fauna Salvaje - Veterinario Jesús López
Play Caption
And here is an example of an adjective ending in -e in the plural form that is used to modify the masculine nouns vinos (nouns) and paisajes (landscapes), but also the feminine noun cervezas (beers):
En España tenemos de todos. Grandes vinos...
In Spain, we have them all. Great wines...
grandes cervezas y grandes paisajes.
great beers, and great landscapes.
Captions 41-42, Casa Pancho - vinos y pinchos
Play Caption
On the other hand, some Spanish adjectives end in a consonant, like popular (popular),voraz (voracious), and fácil (easy). These are similar to the ones ending in -e: they only have two forms. The singular form is invariable for feminine and masculine nouns:
La tarea fácil / The easy homework.
El curso fácil / The easy course.
El actor popular / The popular actor.
La actriz popular / The popular actress.
El lobo voraz / The voracious (male) wolf.
La loba voraz / The voracious (female) wolf.
And the plural form uses -es for both feminine and masculine nouns. Notice how you may learn to substitute z for c in some cases:
Las tareas fáciles / The easy homeworks.
Los curso fáciles / The easy courses.
Los actores populares / The popular actors.
Las actrices populares / The popular actresses.
Los lobos voraces / The voracious (male) wolves.
Las lobas voraces / The voracious (female) wolves.
Finally, there is a group of adjectives in Spanish that end in a consonant but don't follow the previous rule exactly. These are adjectives ending in -án, -ón, and -or. For these, the feminine adds -a for the singular, and -as for the plural. The masculine uses -es for the plural form. The good news is there are not many adjectives in this group. Some examples are:
El hombre haragán / The lazy man.
La mujer haragana / The lazy woman.
El maestro fanfarrón / The boastful (male) teacher.
La maestra fanfarrona / The boastful (female) teacher.
El policía abusador / The abusive policeman.
La policía abusadora / The abusive policewoman.
Can you figure out the corresponding plural forms? They are as follows:
Los hombres haraganes / The lazy men.
Las mujeres haraganas / The lazy women.
Los maestros fanfarrones / The braggart (male) teachers.
La maestra fanfarrona / The braggart (female) teachers.
Los policías abusadores / The abusive policemen.
Las policías abusadoras / The abusive policewomen.
In one of Yabla's videos, Spanish veterinarian, Jesús López, uses two interesting and very similar words:
Cualquiera puede traer cualquier animal.
Anyone can bring any animal.
Caption 8, Centro de Recuperación de la Fauna Salvaje - Veterinario Jesús López
Play Caption
The Spanish words, cualquiera (anyone) and cualquier (any), may look very much alike, but their functions happen to be very different. While cualquiera is an indefinite pronoun, cualquier is an indefinite adjective.
For that reason, whenever the adjective, cualquier, is used, it must be accompanied by a noun, e.g. cualquier animal (any animal). Let's take a look at these examples:
En cualquier caso, los datos de España no son nada alentadores.
In any case, the data from Spain is not encouraging at all.
Captions 27-28, 3R - Campaña de reciclaje
Play Caption
Mira los niños, juegan con globos de cualquier color
Look at the kids, they play with balloons of any color
Caption 9, Café Tacuba - Mediodía
Play Caption
¿Puede venir cualquier persona aquí? -Sí.
Can any person come here? -Yes.
Caption 5, 75 minutos - Gangas para ricos
Play Caption
On the other hand, the pronoun, cualquiera (anyone), should not be used to accompany a noun, but rather to substitute it, as cualquiera means "anyone." For example, you can use the pronoun, cualquiera, to substitute the phrase, cualquier persona, in the previous example:
¿Puede venir cualquiera aquí? -Sí.
Can anyone come here? -Yes.
Here is another example containing the pronoun, cualquiera:
No cualquiera podía ser caballero. O sea...
Not just anyone could be a knight. I mean...
Caption 17, Antonio Vargas - Artista - ilustración
Play Caption
Now, to further complicate the matter, Spanish has a common plural form for both the adjective, cualquier, and the pronoun, cualquiera, which is cualesquiera. Although the use of this plural form for both the adjective and the pronoun is uncommon in everyday speech, let's go ahead and transform the previous examples into their plural forms as an excercise. You will note that their English translations are identical to their singular equivalents.
For the adjective, cualquier:
¿Pueden venir cualesquiera personas aquí? -Sí.*
Can any person come here? -Yes.
For the pronoun, cualquiera:
No cualesquiera podían ser caballeros.
Not just anyone could be a knight.
* As a side note, a shorter version for the adjective, cualesquier, also exists, but this is even less common and can generally only be found in old literature.
Finally, and very interestingly, there is one instance in which the word, cualquiera (and its plural, cualesquiera), can be used as a qualitative adjective meaning "insignificant" or "irrelevant." When used in this manner, the adjective always comes after the noun rather than before it. This use is equivalent to the English expression "any old" or "just any." Let's see an example.
Sólo espera, que hoy no será un día cualquiera
Just wait, because today won't be any old day
Caption 49, Cuarto poder - Aquí no se está jugando
Play Caption
This adjective is most commonly used in negative phrases:
Este no es un perro cualquiera; es el perro de mi padre.
This is not just any dog. It's my father's dog.
No era un tipo cualquiera; era el jefe de la tribu.
He wasn't just any guy. He was the tribe's chief.
By extension, however unfairly, the expressions, un cualquiera and una cualquiera, can mean "a nobody" and "a prostitute" (or low class or sexually promiscous woman), respectively. You can find an example in our Argentinian telenovela, Muñeca Brava:
Pero a mí no me va a ofender porque yo no soy una cualquiera.
But you're not going to disrespect me because I am not a floozy.
Captions 83-84, Muñeca Brava - 43 La reunión
Play Caption
This is the end of the lesson. Thank you for reading, and don't forget to send us you comments and suggestions.
French
German
Italian
Chinese
English
English 
Français
Deutsch
Español
Italiano
Português
