Dialogue

Lesson Transcript

Do you know how to use Spanish demonstrative adjectives?
Welcome to Three Step Spanish Practice by SpanishPod101.com!
In this lesson, you’ll practice asking for the price using common demonstrative adjectives.
Let's look at the main dialogue.
Two people are having a conversation. A woman is asking the shopkeeper about the price of a painting.
Disculpe, ¿Cuánto cuesta esa pintura?
"Excuse me, how much does that painting cost?"
¿Qué pintura? ¿Esta?
"Which painting? This one?"
esa pintura
means "that painting."
esa
meaning "that" is used here because it's a demonstrative adjective referring to the feminine singular noun pintura, which means "painting."
There are other demonstrative adjectives in Spanish that also depend on the noun's gender, number, and location.
In this lesson, we will focus on este and esta, which mean "this," and ese and esa, which mean "that."
In Spanish, if the noun is masculine and singular, este means "this" and ese means "that."
If the noun is feminine and singular, then esta means "this" and esa means "that."
Here, ese and esa are used when the object is closer to the listener than the speaker.
When talking about plural nouns, the endings change.
For masculine plural nouns, estos means "these" and esos means "those."
For feminine plural nouns, estas means "these," and esas means "those."
The verb doesn't change based on gender, but it does change with number!
In the dialogue, we saw cuesta, which means "cost" for singular nouns.
But what happens when we talk about more than one item?
It becomes cuestan!
Let's practice this grammar point more in this lesson.

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