Overview of Adjectives and Articles

Video Transcription

[SPANISH] Adjectives. Adjectives or words that describe nouns or pronouns. They can tell you things like what the noun is like, which noun it is, they can tell you how many of the nouns there are and they can tell you whose they are. So lots of different kinds of adjectives and you'll be learning about each. However they all have one thing in common, they have to agree in number and gender with announced that they describe or modify. So if the noun is masculine singular the adjective has to be masculine singular as well like [SPANISH]. If a noun's feminine plural the adjective matches and is also feminine and plural like [SPANISH] not [SPANISH].

[SPANISH] Articles. What is it? Articles always come before nouns just like in English for example, the car is el caro. All articles like any other adjective have four forms. Masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural and feminine plural. There are two kinds of articles definite and indefinite. Definite articles refer to specific objects for example, el migo, the friend. They use definite articles much more frequently in Spanish than we do in English. You've already learned the singular definite articles El and la. The corresponding plural forms are los and las. All four forms mean the.

So the male friend is El amigo but the female friend would be, that's right, La amigo. So it's feminine therefore the word of the must be feminine as well La. Now let's talk about a group. What if you had more than one male friend? los amigos. So the amigo though noun would add an S to make it plural because it ends in a vowel, amigo becomes amigo. The plural for L is Los, Los amigos.

By the way this would also be used if you had a male friend and a female friend in the same group because in Spanish the neutral gender is the plural masculine. So los amigos could refer to all males or a mixed group of guys and girls that are your friends. However if you have all-female friends, or if you're talking about your female friends only then it would be las amigas. Again, las amigas So amiga becomes plural by adding an S and they change la las. So try this after me one more time, el amigo, la amiga, los amigos, las amigas.

Now for indefinite articles. Indefinite articles refer to non specific objects, as in un amigo, as opposed to elamigo. Here's an example bring me the book on the kitchen table. That's specific, the book, I have a specific item in mind that I want. As opposed to, when I go to the beach this summer I like to read a book. I have no specific book in mind, I just know that that's probably the only time I'll get to read so why not read a book. So indefinite articles are the equivalent of A or An in English, the plural forms mean some. In Spanish they are un, una, unos and unas. Notice they all come from the number one un, that makes sense right? A or an is one essentially.

So how would you say a male friend, a friend who is a male? Un amigo. A female friend is. Una amiga. Some male friends or some friends who are male and female mixed. unos amigos. And some female friends would be. unas amigas. [SPANISH]. How would you say a boy using chico? Un chico. What about a girl? Una chica, Some boys would be, unos chicos. And some girls, unas chicas. [SPANISH].

One thing to note about Spanish is that they use definite articles far more often than we do in English. In Spanish the neutral gender is the masculine plural that's why Los amigos could be all-male friends or a mixed group of guys and girls who are my friends. However, if you're referring to friends of yours who are all girls then you would use the form las chicas.

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