Learn how to use Spanish adjectives
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Anna: Hola soy Anna. |
| Eric: Eric here! “Using Spanish Adjectives.” |
| Anna: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use Spanish adjectives |
| Eric: This conversation takes place at a shopping mall restaurant. |
| Anna: And it’s between Camila and Mioko. |
| Eric: The speakers have only just met, but they're becoming friends, so they're speaking casually. |
| Anna: Let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Camila: ¿Dónde está mi bolso? (hablando para ella misma) |
| Mioko: ¿Cómo es? |
| Camila: Es rojo y grande. |
| Mioko: ¿Es nuevo? |
| Camila: No, es bastante viejo. |
| Eric: Now let's listen to the same conversation at a slow speed. |
| Camila: ¿Dónde está mi bolso? (hablando para ella misma) |
| Mioko: ¿Cómo es? |
| Camila: Es rojo y grande. |
| Mioko: ¿Es nuevo? |
| Camila: No, es bastante viejo. |
| Eric: Let's now listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Camila: ¿Dónde está mi bolso? (hablando para ella misma) |
| Camila: Where’s my bag? (talking to herself) |
| Mioko: ¿Cómo es? |
| Mioko: What's it like? (Literally, How is it?) |
| Camila: Es rojo y grande. |
| Camila: It's red and big. |
| Mioko: ¿Es nuevo? |
| Mioko: Is it new? |
| Camila: No, es bastante viejo. |
| Camila: No, it's pretty old. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: Now let’s talk a bit about colors, especially about the color red. |
| Anna: Red is the color that represents Spain. At least, it's the color many people associate with Spain. |
| Eric: Right. That's probably because at international sporting events, the Spanish teams wear red uniforms. So people see red and think, Spain! |
| Anna: Beyond that, the Spanish national football team always wears red T-shirts during and after games. That team is known as La Roja. And La Roja are the European and world champions many times over. |
| Eric: The idea behind the name is something like "the red team," which was originally just a nickname, but it's become important to the people of Spain as well. Ok, Now let's take a look at the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Anna: dónde |
| Eric: where |
| Anna: dónde [slowly] |
| Anna: dónde |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: rojo |
| Eric: red |
| Anna: rojo |
| Anna: rojo |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: bolso |
| Eric: bag |
| Anna: bolso [slowly] |
| Anna: bolso |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: cómo |
| Eric: how |
| Anna: cómo [slowly] |
| Anna: cómo |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: grande |
| Eric: big |
| Anna: grande [slowly] |
| Anna: grande |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: viejo, vieja |
| Eric: old |
| Anna: viejo, vieja [slowly] |
| Anna: viejo, vieja |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: nuevo, nueva |
| Eric: new |
| Anna: nuevo, nueva [slowly] |
| Anna: nuevo, nueva |
| Eric: And last.. |
| Anna: bastante |
| Eric: a lot, too much, quite |
| Anna: bastante [slowly] |
| Anna: bastante |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at a few words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Anna: The first word we'll look at is ¿Dónde?, which means "where." Dónde is an adverb that indicates position or location. |
| Eric: That's right. Its translation in English is "where," but be sure to write it with an accent mark, because the meaning can change without it. |
| Anna: That's right. A good example of this word is ¿Dónde está la estación? |
| Eric: Which means, "Where’s the station?" |
| Anna: The next phrase we'll look at is ¿Cómo? Cómo is another Spanish adverb. |
| Eric: In this case, it's an adverb of manner because it shows the "manner" that things are, or are not, done. The translation into English would be "how." |
| Anna: Exactly. Some examples of this would be ¿Cómo estás?, which means "How are you?" and ¿Cómo puedo ir al colegio?, which means "How can I go to the school?" |
| Eric: The next word we'll look at is “red,” or... |
| Anna: Rojo. This word can be a noun when we talk about the color rojo... |
| Eric: ...or the “color red.” It can also be an adjective when we use it to describe something, as in... |
| Anna: El coche rojo, which means "the red car." |
| Eric: Could you give us an example of that? |
| Anna: Sure. You could say something like Me gusta el color rojo, which means, "I like the red color." |
| Eric: The last word we'll look at is... |
| Anna: Bastante. |
| Eric: Which means? |
| Anna: In this case, the word bastante is an adverb, although it can work as an adjective in other situations. We usually translate bastante as "pretty," "a lot," or "very." |
| Eric: And in the dialogue, it's used to mean "pretty" or "very." |
| Anna: Right. For example, you could say, Es bastante nuevo, which means, "It’s pretty new." |
| Eric: Okay, now let's move on to the grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use Spanish adjectives. |
| Anna: In the dialogue, we heard the phrase, Es grande y rojo. |
| Eric: Which we translated as, "It’s big and red." |
| Anna: In English, an adjective is a descriptive word that modifies a noun. It's the same in Spanish, but any word that accompanies a noun in Spanish has to agree with it in gender and number. |
| Eric: Right. So, we're going to look at some rules for adjectives in Spanish. The first rule is that masculine adjectives end in -o and feminine adjectives end in -a. |
| Anna: For example, nuevo means "new," but it's the masculine form, so it ends in an -o. In contrast, nueva also means "new," but it's the feminine form, so it ends in -a. |
| Eric: Could you use those in some sentences? |
| Anna: Good idea. For example, you could say, La profesora es simpática, which means "The teacher is nice," or El profesor es simpático, which also means "The teacher is nice," with the adjective in the masculine form. |
| Eric: Pay attention to how many things change between the two Spanish sentences, but the English translation is exactly the same. |
| Anna: Now, the second rule is adjectives whose endings are -án, -ín, ón, or -dor in the masculine, can be made feminine by adding just an -a at the end. Also, in the feminine, the accent mark disappears. So a masculine adjective would be trabajador, |
| Eric:This means "hardworking." |
| Anna: The feminine form would be trabajadora, which also means "hardworking." |
| Eric: Moving on, our third rule might be considered an exception. It’s that there are also adjectives that don't change in gender. |
| Anna: They are adjectives like interesante, which means "interesting," or triste which means "sad." |
| Eric: The tip here is that most of these adjectives end in the letter -e. But again, there are exceptions. |
| Anna: Yes, there are. Like the adjective popular, which means "popular." It doesn't change for gender either. |
| Eric: Could you give us some examples? |
| Anna: Sure! One example would be, El libro es interesante, which means, "The book is interesting." Another could be, La novela es interesante, which means, "The novel is interesting." The adjective doesn't change its form here. |
| Eric: Listeners, we're almost out of time for this lesson, so be sure to check out the lesson notes for rules on how to make adjectives plural. |
| HOMEWORK |
| Anna: But before we go, here’s the answer from the previous tarea. ¿Cuánto dólares vale ese reloj? is incorrect; the question should be: ¿Cuántos dólares vale ese reloj? |
| Eric: And here’s this week’s homework. Identify the correct sentence: |
| Anna: 1) La camisa viejo está en la mesa. |
| 2)El ave pequeño duerme en el árbol. |
| 3)La niña inteligente estudia en el jardín. |
Outro |
| Eric: That’s all for this lesson. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time. |
| Anna: ¡Hasta pronto! |
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