Nouns & Adjectives

I. Intro: Parts of Speech

Let’s begin by going over the main parts of speech, or in Spanish: Partes de la oración

Part of Speech	Parte de la oración	Función	Ejemplo
Noun	Sustantivo (nombre)	Persona, lugar, cosa, idea	Profesor, universidad, calendario, libertad
Verb	Verbo	Acción, estado, condición	Comunicar, comprender, escribir, ser/estar
Adjective	Adjetivo	Describe un sustantivo	Contento, triste, grande, pequeño
Adverb	Adverbio	Describe un verbo, un adjetivo, o otro adverbio	Correctamente, muy, bien, mal

II. Grammar/Vocab: Nouns & Adjectives

As you can see in the table, an adjective is a word that describes a noun. Words like natural, romántico, and honesto are adjectives. In other words, adjectives give more information.

Let’s look at the adjectives in the following sentences. The adjective is bold, and the noun that it describes is underlined.

1. Tú eres un amigo fantástico.
2. Ellas también son amigas fantásticas.
3. El presidente está en la Casa Blanca.
4. Mi madre es una persona honesta.
5. No, gracias, yo no como comida rápida.

• Notice anything? The adjective usually comes after the noun it describes.
• Anything else? Adjectives agree in gender and number with the nouns and articles they describe.

1. Adjectives ending in -o have 4 forms [o, a, os, as]

El chico alto	La chica alta
Los chicos altos	Las chicas altas

2. Adjectives ending in -e have 2 forms [e, es]

El chico inteligente	La chica inteligente
Los chicos inteligentes	Las chicas inteligentes

3. Adjectives ending in a consonant have 2 forms [__, es]

El chico popular	La chica popular
Los chicos populares	Las chicas populares

III. Adjectives of quantity

Some adjectives usually come before the noun. One group is called “adjectives of quantity.”

Here they are:

Spanish	English
alguno	some
bastante	enough
cuanto	how many, as much
demasiado	too much
más	more
menos	less
ninguno	no, none
poco	a little
suficiente	sufficient, enough
varios	various, some, a few, several
todos	all

IV. Possessive adjectives

Another group of adjectives, the possessive adjectives (my, your, their, etc.), always come before the noun they modify.

Spanish	English
mi	my
tu*	your (informal)
su	your (formal), his/her
nuestro/a	our
vuestro/a**	your (pl., informal)
su	their/your

*Note that possessive adjective tu does not have an accent mark, in contrast with the subject pronoun tú.
**Primarily used in Spain, other varieties of Spanish use ustedes

Like other adjectives, possessives agree in number:

Spanish	English	Spanish	English
Mi hermano	My brother	Mis hermanos	My brothers
Mi hermana	My sister	Mis hermanas	My sisters

Since nuestro ends in a vowel, it also agree in gender:

Spanish	English	Spanish	English
Nuestro padre	Our father	Nuestros padres	Our fathers
Nuestra madre	Our mother	Nuestras madres	Our mothers

V. El Verbo Haber

“En lugar de respuestas, hay varias preguntas.”
Instead of answers, there are many questions.

See that word hay? It’s the invariable form of a special verb in Spanish called haber that means both “there is” + “there are.” Here’s one point in Spanish where you don’t have to worry about gender or number:

Form	Examples
Hay + N (singular)	Hay una isla en el mar
Hay + N (plural)	Hay muchos hombres en la playa

The takeaway: Some adjectives come after the noun, some come before the noun, but all adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.