Today's post is about agreement between words in Spanish. You definitely know what agreement is because you have learnt it in the past, but you might not know the technical name for it.
Agreement is basically a phenomenon that happens when words agree in gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular and plural). In Spanish, a noun has to agree with the words that go with it, which are articles and adjectives.* Examples:
un libro rojo - a red book
una casa blanca - a white house
los chicos altos - the tall boys
las chicas simpáticas - the nice girls
Of course, where there is a rule, there is an exception. Nouns and adjectives do not need to end with -o or -a. Ajectives that end with any other letter, do not change when agreeing with the noun:
un coche grande - a big car
una televisión grande - a big TV
un perro marrón - a brown dog
una gata marrón - a brown cat
Another exception is for the plural words. When the adjective ends with -e, we only need to add -s.
un chico inteligente - a clever boy
dos chicos inteligentes - two clever boys
When the adjective goes in plural but ends with a consonant, we need to add -es.
un perro marrón - a brown dog
dos perros marrones - two brown dogs
Here are some of the most popular adjectives!
alto - tall
bajo - short
guapo - good-looking
feo - ugly
grande - big
pequeño - small
pobre - poor
rico - rich
caro - expensive
barato - cheap
útil - useful
inútil - useless
largo - long
corto - short
fuerte - strong
débil - weak
limpio - clean
sucio - dirty
feliz / contento - happy
triste - sad
interesante - interesting
aburrido - boring
blanco - white
negro - black
verde - green
azul - blue
rojo - red
amarillo - yellow
Try this quick exercise to test your agreements!
1.Lucía es una chica muy _____________ (interesting).
2.Los chicos son bastante _____________ (tall).
3.Pablo es un poco _____________ (boring).
4.El libro es _____________ (yellow).
5.Hoy estoy muy __________ (happy).
6.Laura y Penélope son chicas muy _________ (strong).
7.El coche es de color __________ (red).
8.Esta herramienta es ______________ (useful).
9.Las casas son muy ______________ (big)
10.Los libros son bastante ____________ (cheap).
Soluciones - Key
1.interesante
2.altos
3.aburrido
4.amarillo
5.feliz
6.fuertes
7.rojo
8.útil
9.grandes
10.baratos
*For more info on nouns and adjectives, don't forget to check out this other entry :) Happy learning!
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