Learn two basics about adjectives in Spanish: agreement and placement
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Dylan: Hola, hola everybody, this is Dylan, ¿cómo están? |
| Carlos: What’s going on, pod101world? My name is Carlos. “Putting the squeeze on your Spanish.” In this lesson, you will learn about adjectives. |
| Dylan: This conversation takes place in a home. |
| Carlos: The conversation is between Daniel and Andrés. |
| Dylan: The speakers are friends and are speaking informally. |
| Carlos: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| ANDRÉS: Ahora sí creo que tú estás enamorado, ¡ella debe de ser divina! |
| DANIEL: ¡Que si qué! |
| ANDRÉS: Pero cuéntame más, ¡cómo es? |
| DANIEL: Ella es bajita, morena, tiene los ojos color miel más bellos del mundo. |
| ANDRÉS: ¡Ahh!, es la típica descripción de una mujer latina. |
| Andrés: Now I believe you are in love…she must be beautiful! |
| Daniel: She sure is! |
| Andrés: But tell me more, how is she? |
| Daniel: She is short, brown skin; she has the most beautiful hazel eyes in the world. |
| Andrés: Ahh! She is the typical description of a Latin woman. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Carlos: Dylan, what is the traditional role of Latin America? I mean like old school like in the fifties or sixties. |
| Dylan: I guess it’s probably the same as in anywhere, you know the man is the guy who supplies for the family and the woman is the housewife who stays home with the kids. |
| Carlos: Has that changed much? |
| Dylan: Yes. Very much as it has in the entire world. Women now have rights and can go work and sometimes make more than the men themselves. |
| Carlos: Where’s this? Make more than the men themselves. |
| Dylan: Ay Carlos! Grow up. |
| Carlos: I’m being serious. You tell me there is no like money discrepancies with the pay? |
| Dylan: There’s not supposed to be. |
| Carlos: I’m not saying there’s supposed to be, but there is, they are still in America. Or you are talking about a woman can get a better job than a man. Is that what you are trying to say? |
| Dylan: Yes. And making more cash than the man. |
| Carlos: Okay, but in the same job, would a woman make more money than the man? |
| Dylan: I think so. I think she should. |
| Carlos: I’m not saying she shouldn’t, I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m just saying for every dollar a man makes in America, a woman makes $0.97. |
| Dylan: Not anymore, Obama signed on that. |
| Carlos: Well, that’s right. The Messiah came. |
| Dylan: I don’t really know but I think that it’s equal. |
| Carlos: Well either way, it’s gotten a lot better than it used to be. |
| Dylan: Yes, yes. |
| Carlos: Okay guys, let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Dylan: “Deber”. |
| Carlos: “Should”, “ought to.” |
| Dylan: “De-ber”, “deber”. |
| Dylan: “Divina”. |
| Carlos: “Beautiful.” |
| Dylan: “Di-vi-na”, “divina”. |
| Dylan: “Baja”. |
| Carlos: “Short.” |
| Dylan: “Ba-ja”, “baja”. |
| Dylan: “Morena”. |
| Carlos: “Dark skins.” |
| Dylan: “Mo-re-na”, “morena”. |
| Dylan: “Ojo”. |
| Carlos: “Eye.” |
| Dylan: “O-jo”, “ojo”. |
| Dylan: “Miel”. |
| Carlos: “Honey”, “hazel eyes.” |
| Dylan: “Miel”, “miel”. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Carlos: Okay guys, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases for this lesson. |
| Dylan: The first word we’ll look at is “deber”. |
| Carlos: “Must”, “ought”, “should.” |
| Dylan: When using the verb “deber” we have two interesting possibilities. |
| Carlos: Oh yes, what are they? |
| Dylan: Well, if “deber” is coupled with an infinitive, it expresses obligation. |
| Carlos: Okay, what’s the second? |
| Dylan: When we see “deber” plus “de” we are expressing “una suposición”. |
| Carlos: “An assumption.” |
| Dylan: Which is what we heard today in the conversation when Andres says “¡ella debe de ser divina!” |
| Carlos: “She must be beautiful.” You know, when thinking of Daniel’s reputation in the last lesson that must be true. A good assumption. |
| Dylan: Let’s take a look at some other assumptions from this first obligation. “Carmen debe ir al hospital”. |
| Carlos: “Carmen should go to the hospital.” |
| Dylan: Now you try one with an assumption. |
| Carlos: “Deber” plus “de”. |
| Dylan: “Carlos debería de haber estudiado más para el examen”. “Carlos should have studied more for the test.” |
| Carlos: Nice. You know I didn’t know the difference before. |
| Dylan: Well, now you know. |
| Carlos: Could we consider “necesitar”, “to need”, a related word? |
| Dylan: I would say that is a fair assumption. |
| Carlos: Next up. |
| Dylan: We have an adjective, “divina”, “beautiful.” |
| Carlos: Wait, wait, wait. Doesn’t “bonita” or “guapa” mean “beautiful”? |
| Dylan: Haven’t you learned that Spanish has levels, Carlos? “Divina” is like saying “divine”, like “disgustingly beautiful.” |
| Carlos: Disgustingly beautiful, I like that. |
| Dylan: So when we hear our example from the conversation once again… |
| Carlos: “¡Ella debe de ser divina!” “She must be beautiful!” |
| Dylan: You know that this girl’s beauty is at another level. |
| Carlos: Now, could you use this adjective for a man, like saying “divino”? |
| Dylan: Only is he’s like a Roman God or something, and then I don’t think so. |
| Carlos: Okay. Good to know. |
| Dylan: But you know what? You could use it for a kid, like for a little boy, “¡qué divino!”, “¡qué niño más divino!”. |
| Carlos: Aaah, okay. |
| Dylan: You know you could say that. |
| Carlos: Good to know so when I want to talk about my family I could say “mi sobrino es divino”. |
| Dylan: Right, “my nephew is beautiful”, exactly. |
| Carlos: Now I heard he mentioned two related words but I think there is one or two that I might not have mentioned. |
| Dylan: Two come to mind actually, “precioso, preciosa” and “hermoso, hermosa”, all good things to be called. |
| Carlos: Definitely. |
| Dylan: Moving on, “bajita”. |
| Carlos: An adjective that means “short.” I see the diminutive. |
| Dylan: So if you are seeing the diminutive, what do you know? |
| Carlos: That this girl is really small. “Ella es bajita”. |
| Dylan: Yes she’s short. Like really small. “Yo tengo dos primas, una es alta y otra es bajita”. |
| Carlos: “I have two cousins and one is tall and the other is short.” |
| Dylan: We could also use the adjective “pequeño, pequeña”. |
| Carlos: “Small”, “tiny”? |
| Dylan: Now this next word has different meanings and can be a little tricky. |
| Carlos: And what’s that? |
| Dylan: “Moreno, morena”. How is this used in today’s conversation? |
| Carlos: “Ella es bajita, morena”. |
| Dylan: “She’s short, brown skin.” Now you have to be careful. |
| Carlos: Yes, I know that it’s slippery slope. You know sometimes it can be thought of as offensive but apparently not generally. |
| Dylan: Well, here you can say “negro, negra” to refer to someone’s skin color and that’s not offensive or you can say “moreno, morena” that’s not offensive either. |
| Carlos: Yes and keep in mind guys that the shades of skin characterize in Latin America is done a lot differently than in North America. |
| Dylan: Well, that’s true too. |
| Carlos: So I could say “Carla no es blanca y rubia, es morena”. |
| Dylan: “Carla isn’t white and blonde, she is dark.” |
| Carlos: Now could we use the adjective “oscuro, oscura”? |
| Dylan: Yes, you could say “de piel oscura”, “Carla es de piel oscura”, yes you could say that. |
| Carlos: Okay, now I hope our next word is a little less sketchy. |
| Dylan: Let’s see, they are “ojos”. |
| Carlos: “Ojos”. A nice friendly masculine noun that means “eyes.” |
| Dylan: “Tiene los ojos color miel más bellos del mundo”. |
| Carlos: “She has the most beautiful hazel eyes in the world.” |
| Dylan: Interesting, huh? |
| Carlos: Yes, I don’t think that I’ve ever said that someone had honey colored eyes which is why I picked hazel. I mean it’s the closest thing I could think of. |
| Dylan: Well, it’s the right choice. You know when I was a teenager, “mi novio tenía los ojos verdes”. |
| Carlos: Green eyes, huh he must have been popular. |
| Dylan: You have no idea. |
| Carlos: But we did point out “miel” which literally translated means “honey” in the noun form. |
| Dylan: Right, but it has other uses which are applied here. But yes, you go to the store to buy the sweet liquid and it is called “miel”. |
| Carlos: But to use it as eye color is common too in the adjective form. |
| Dylan: Oh, yes. In fact, “los ojos color miel son mis preferidos”. |
| Carlos: I think a lot of people prefer eyes that color especially when you are surrounded by 98% of the population that has brown eyes. |
| Dylan: That is so true. |
| Carlos: Question. |
| Dylan: Shoot. |
| Carlos: Is “el maple”? |
| Dylan: “Maple.” |
| Carlos: Is “el maple” “the maple”? |
| Dylan: Yes. “Maple” is “maple.” |
| Carlos: Okay. What’s our grammar point for today? |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Dylan: Let’s take another look at those pesky adjectives. |
| Carlos: Yes, there are quite a bit of them in our lesson weren’t there? |
| Dylan: Count them off. |
| Carlos: Ok, “divina”, “bajita”, “morena”, “bellos” and from what I look at, you know we have three feminine adjectives and one masculine which means there are three feminine nouns and one masculine noun. |
| Dylan: Very good, Carlos. Now we have some information we can take out of those. |
| Carlos: I think I know where you are going with this. |
| Dylan:What are adjectives? |
| Carlos: Once again, adjectives are modifiers, they shape the meaning of a noun by describing its characteristics. |
| Dylan: There is a fairly well established set of rules by which we use adjectives in Spanish. Today, we are going to consider two aspects of adjectives. |
| Carlos: And those will be agreement and placement. |
| Dylan: Agreement... |
| Carlos: Adjectives are either singular or plural. |
| Dylan: This way of breaking down the group in two is called “el número”, “the number” of the adjective. Number is shown in the ending of the word. |
| Carlos: We call this inflection. Adjectives are either masculine or feminine. So looking at our example in today’s conversation, in relation to eyes... |
| Dylan: We heard “tiene los ojos color miel más bellos del mundo”. |
| Carlos: And we hear the adjective “bello” being used to describe a masculine plural noun “ojos”. |
| Dylan: So it follows “ojos más bellos”. |
| Carlos: If she had a patch and she was like a pirate, we are talking about one eye. |
| Dylan: Then we would have to say “ojo bello”, “beautiful eye.” |
| Carlos: Audience did you notice where the adjective was placed? |
| Dylan: We normally place adjectives after the noun they modify. |
| Carlos: Right, this is the normal everyday placement. |
| Dylan: But by no means the end overall. |
| Carlos: Now when do we have exceptions? |
| Dylan: Exceptions to this rule occur when we want to place more emphasis on the characteristics we are attributing to the meaning of the noun then to the meaning of the noun itself. |
| Carlos: The following formations are the normal endings for adjectives that have number and gender. Let’s check out some examples. |
| Dylan: “¿Has visto mi camisa roja?” |
| Carlos: “Have you seen my redshirt?” |
| Dylan: “La asistencia médica aquí es siempre muy buena”. |
| Carlos: “The medical attention here is always very good.” |
| Dylan: “Ha sido una noche larga”. |
| Carlos: “It has been a long night.” |
| Dylan: “Nunca recibo tus correos electrónicos. No sé qué pasa“. |
| Carlos: “I never receive your emails. I don’t know what the deal is.” |
| Dylan: Once you learn to recognize the gender and number of nouns, using adjectives is pretty easy since all we need to do is make sure that they agree with each other. |
| Carlos: Now this is really just another way of saying we need to conserve the concordance. “La concordancia”, “agreement concordance.” |
| Dylan: Unfortunately the system is not perfect in this regard. |
| Carlos: Of course, it isn’t. |
| Dylan: And there are plenty of exceptions. |
| Carlos: Of course there are. Like? |
| Dylan: Well, for example adjectives such as “verde”, “green”, and “sonriente”, “smiley”, end in “-e” in the singular and “-es” in the plural. So we use one of these two forms despite the gender of the noun it’s modifying. So we would say “los niños sonrientes”, “the smiley boys”, as well as “las niñas sonrientes”, “the smiley girls.” |
| Carlos: Now wasn’t there something about mixed genders? |
| Dylan: Right for example, plural nouns that contain masculine and feminine characteristics such as “el plato y la taza sucios se quedaron en la mesa”, here since “platos” is masculine and plural and “tazas” is feminine and plural we use the adjective “sucios” masculine and plural. |
| Carlos: Why? |
| Dylan: This is because the masculine characteristics is said to dominate over the feminine characteristics in a group of mixed gender nouns. Therefore we use the masculine “-o” ending when an adjective describes a group of both masculine and feminine nouns. |
Outro |
| Carlos: Well, this has been an amazingly great review of adjectives. But you know what guys that just about does it for today. |
| Dylan: ¡Chao! |
| Carlos: ¡Nos vemos! |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide