Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to correctly match Spanish adjectives to the gender and number of the nouns they describe.

Lesson Explanation

Just as nouns carry gender (Part 1, Lesson 4), adjectives must agree with the noun they describe in both gender and number — a rule with no equivalent in English, where “red” stays “red” regardless of the noun.

Adjectives ending in -o change to match gender:

el chico alto — the tall boy (masculine)
la chica alta — the tall girl (feminine)

Adjectives ending in -e or most consonants do NOT change for gender, only for number:

el chico inteligente — the smart boy
la chica inteligente — the smart girl (same form)

For plural, add -s if the adjective ends in a vowel, or -es if it ends in a consonant:

los chicos altos — the tall boys
las chicas altas — the tall girls
los chicos inteligentes — the smart boys
un examen difícil → unos exámenes difíciles — a difficult exam → some difficult exams

A genuinely important word-order difference from English: most descriptive Spanish adjectives come after the noun, not before it — la casa blanca (the white house), not “the house white.” A small set of adjectives (like bueno and malo) can appear before the noun in certain contexts, but the after-the-noun position is the default to learn first.

Practice Questions