A1
Adjectives — agreement and position
How Spanish adjectives agree, where they sit, and the adjectives that shorten before a masculine noun.
An adjective matches its noun in gender and number.
| un libro rojo | |
| una mesa roja | |
| unos libros rojos | |
| unas mesas rojas |
una casa blanca
a (f.) house white (f.)
a white house
Adjectives ending in -e or a consonant have no feminine
Grande, interesante, fácil, azul are the same for both genders. Only the plural changes.
un libro interesante / una película interesante
a book interesting / a film interesting
an interesting book / an interesting film
Nationalities are the exception: español → española, inglés → inglesa.
They come after the noun
un coche rojo
a car red
a red car
un rojo coche
un coche rojo
The adjective follows. Putting it in front is not ungrammatical but it is literary, and with a colour it simply sounds wrong.
A few go in front, and mean something different there
| after | before | |
|---|---|---|
| viejo | old (aged) | old (long-standing) |
| grande | big | great |
| pobre | poor (without money) | poor (pitiable) |
| nuevo | brand new | another, newly acquired |
Un amigo viejo is an elderly friend; un viejo amigo is an old friend. The figurative sense goes in front, as in French.
Some shorten before a masculine singular noun
Bueno → buen, malo → mal, primero → primer, tercero → tercer, grande → gran.
un buen libro
a good book
a good book
una gran ciudad
a great city
a great city
Grande shortens before either gender, and shortening it also shifts the meaning from big to great.