Learn the top adjectives to describe people
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| Hola, mi nombre es Brenda Romaniello. |
| “Hello, my name is Brenda Romaniello” and I’m your Spanish teacher. |
| Today, we’re going to have a look at the top 10 adjectives that we can use to describe people in Spanish. |
| So, we’re gonna start with some vocabulary. We’re gonna learn a few adjectives that we can use to describe people, yes? So, let’s have a look at these adjectives right now. |
| So, the first one is… |
| Joven. Joven (enunciated). Joven. |
| As you can see, the first letter is a strong /J/. In Spanish, we pronounce it with a strong /J/, joven, joven. |
| And joven means “young” and we use it for both masculino and femenino, so for masculine and feminine. So that means that we can use it to describe men and women, yes? So, if you are describing a man, we would say joven, and if you are describing a woman, we will say also, joven, in this case. |
| Viejo. Viejo (enunciated). Viejo |
| That is to say “old” in Spanish, and this is to describe a man, viejo. And the feminine form of this adjective is vieja, vieja. So this is to say “old” and this is to describe a woman, vieja. |
| Viejo/vieja. |
| As you can see, we change the O for A and we have to match, yes, this is something that we need to pay attention to and change viejo, if we are describing a man, or use vieja, if we are describing a woman. |
| The next one is… |
| Bajo. Bajo (enunciated). Bajo. |
| “Short” or if it is the femenino form, baja, baja, baja. |
| Muy bien. “Very good.” |
| Alto, the opposite. |
| Alto (enunciated). |
| And then the femenino form, alta, alta. |
| So, we need to start paying attention here and to start using this word as the opposite, yes? So joven, the opposite is viejo. So, you’re either joven “young” or viejo “old.” And then you are either bajo or baja in the case, if I am describing myself because I’m a woman, and the opposite is gonna be alto and alta “tall.” |
| The next one… |
| Delgado. Delgado (enunciated). Delgado. |
| Or the femenino form, delgada, delgada, delgada. |
| Delgado or delgada means “thin,” yes? And this is to describe delgado (a man) and delgada (a woman). |
| Let’s see what is the opposite of delgado. What is the opposite of thin? |
| We’re going to say fat, muy bien. En Español, decimos, “we say”… |
| Gordo. Gordo. Gordo (enunciated) |
| And the femenino, gorda, gorda, gorda. |
| Okay, muy bien “very good.” |
| Let’s go with the next one. |
| Feo. |
| Feo is the masculino form, feo. Okay, it’s not /fio/ so that /E/, we have to pronounce it as /E/, feo, feo. |
| And the femenino form is going to be fea, fea. That means “ugly” in Spanish. |
| What is the opposite of ugly? It’s going to be beautiful, but we have a few words to describe and say beautiful in Spanish. To me, they all mean beautiful, but we have slightly different meanings. There are different words that we can use, different adjectives that we can use to describe and say beautiful, yes. |
| So, for example, we can start with pretty, pretty or handsome, yes. |
| Bonito. Bonito (enunciated). |
| Bonito is the masculino, and then, say, pretty, yes, so that will be handsome, yes. And bonita is the femenino form, bonita, bonita. |
| Muy bien! |
| We can also say cute, for example, but it also means beautiful, cute or beautiful. The masculino form is lindo, lindo, lindo. And the femenino form, linda, linda, linda. |
| And the last one, these are all synonyms, as you can see. They all mean beautiful. Pretty, or handsome, cute, or beautiful, and good-looking, yes, good-looking. |
| Guapo (masculino). |
| Guapo. Guapo. Guapo (enunciated). |
| And the femenino guapa, guapa, guapa. |
| Muy bien! |
| So, these are going to be opposites. |
| Remember, “ugly” feo/fea. |
| And beautiful, we have bonito/bonita, lindo/linda, guapo/guapa. |
| Excelente! |
| Something to point out, of course, if we have, for example, if you take into account, like bajo, yes, or gordo, these could be words that are somewhat offensive in a way, if we are describing or if we want to mention the physical characteristics of a person, yes, to call someone short or fat, right? |
| So, for example, it’s common in certain Latin American countries like Mexico to change bajo and say bajito, bajito. Let me write it here for you, bajito. I’m gonna put it here. Bajito, si, or to call someone bajita. |
| Or instead of gordo, we can call them gordito or gordita. So when I...this -ito, yes, so we’re replacing the O for -ito or A for -ito or -ita in this case, -ita. So we’re gonna say bajita or gordita and that is to soften this description, yes, to be less offensive. Whenever you use it in this diminutive form, bajito or gordito, it’s more sweet, it’s softened and therefore, you’re not being offensive in these cases. |
| Something important to point out is bonito. I know the bonito also ends in that -ito or -ita that we were talking about for bajito and gordito, but this is not a diminutive form. It’s basically the word, the adjective in its purest form. I mean, it’s just the adjective. That’s how we say it. That’s how we write it, bonito, and it means “cute” or “beautiful” in this case. |
| Let’s have a look at how we can use these adjectives in a sentence, yes? |
| So, let’s say, for example, we put it into context in a conversation. Let’s say that two friends are at a stadium, yes. And one person can say… |
| Ese es mi hermano. |
| Ese es mi hermano. |
| “That is my brother” |
| Ese es mi hermano. |
| And the other person might say, Ah, es alto. |
| Ah, es alto. |
| “Oh, he’s tall.” |
| Oh, he’s tall. |
| Alto, puedes ver aqui… |
| Puedes ver que estamos usando el adjetivo, and as you can see here, we’re talking about the brother, no, el hermano, so mi hermano. That’s why we’re saying my brother here and, of course, brother is masculino. It’s a man. So in that case, we have to say alto, alto. |
| El es alto. |
| Ah, es alto. |
| Let’s have a look at some other examples. |
| Ella es delgada. |
| Ella es delgada. |
| “She is thin” or “She is slim.” |
| Él es joven. |
| Él es joven. |
| “He is young.” |
| He is young. |
| So, as you can see here, joven is the adjective and we’re describing él so masculino. Remember that joven is also the same word for femenino, so if we’re describing a woman, you can also say, Ella es joven, yes. “She is young.” Ella es joven. |
| And, Ella es delgada “She is thin,” we’re going to say delgada, A, because it’s femenino. We’re describing “she,” yeah? We’re describing her, she. But if we were to describe él, as a man, we would have to say, Él es delgado. |
| Él es delgado. |
| Él es alto. |
| Yes, so, Ah, es alto. |
| Muy bien. |
| So, let’s have a look at the pattern that we have here in both examples and also in the dialogue that we had a look into before. |
| So, the pattern is: |
| Él “he” es “is,” right? “He’s/he is” + [ADJECTIVE] |
| Él es joven. |
| The adjective is joven. |
| Oh, look at this one: |
| (Ella) es + [ADJECTIVE]. |
| She is, no, Ella es delgada. |
| Delgada is the adjective. |
| Here, you see that we have él and ella here in between brackets and that is because this is optional. |
| Have a look at this. |
| In the dialogue, we said, “Ah, es alto” and we translated it as “Oh, he’s tall.” He is tall, we said that as es alto. |
| And in this example, we say, Él es joven. “He is young.” |
| These personal pronouns, yes, in Spanish, they are optional because they’re already mentioned in the verb, yes? And context will help us determine if we’re talking about a he or a she. |
| If we have a look at the dialogue example here, as you can see, when we are describing alto as tall, we’re talking about my brother, yeah? Ese es mi hermano, my brother. So, here we have the reference. We know that it’s a “he.” So when we say es alto, we’re saying he’s tall because we’re talking about the brother, el hermano. |
| In these examples, es delgada, it would mean that we’re talking about a woman, yes, because how do we know, because we are saying the adjective delgada which is “thin” but the femenino form, the form for a woman, yes, when we want to describe a woman. So that’s why we would know that we’re talking about a woman here, es delgada, yes? She is thin. Or we can mention it as Ella es delgada. |
| In the case of Él es joven, if we only say es joven, remember that joven, we have...it’s a femenino and a masculino as an adjective, so el adjetivo es es masculino y femenino, we use it for both to describe men and women, we would need a little bit more context here. So, if we say, Él es joven, Él es joven, we’re giving that information because we don’t have context here. Okay, so that’s why we have an in-between brackets because sometimes in certain contexts, we will know who the person is. Are we talking about él or are we talking about ella, yes? Are we talking about “he” or are we talking about “she.” And in English, it’s pretty much what we said: |
| (Él) es + [ADJECTIVE] |
| He’s + [ADJECTIVE] |
| (Ella) es + [ADJECTIVE]. |
| She’s + [ADJECTIVE] |
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