Coffee Break Spanish - CBS 2.08 | Agreement of adjectives

Episode Date: March 10, 2010

An easy way of extending your range of language is by using adjectives, and this lesson of Coffee Break Spanish looks at adjectives in detail. In Spanish adjectives have to 'agree' with the word they describe and you’ll learn the rules of adjective agreements. Please note that lesson 8 of Season 2 was originally known as lesson 208 of Coffee Break Spanish. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners.This season of Coffee Break Spanish features a total of 40 lessons, all of which will be included in the podcast feed. Just stay subscribed to the podcast to enjoy each episode. If you’d like to benefit from video versions, lesson notes and bonus audio materials, you can access the premium version of Coffee Break Spanish in the Coffee Break Academy.Don’t forget to follow Coffee Break Spanish on Facebook where we post language activities, cultural points and review materials to help you practise your Spanish. Remember - a few minutes a day can help you build your confidence in the language. Access the Coffee Break Spanish Facebook page here.If you’d like to find out what goes on behind the scenes here at Coffee Break Languages, follow @coffeebreaklanguages on Instagram.You can also check out our Coffee Break Spanish Twitter page and the Coffee Break Languages YouTube channel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

at Coffee Break Spanish. Welcome back to Coffee Great Spanish. Today we're on Lesson 48. And in this lesson we're going to be making another aspect of Spanish grammar. We're moving away from there, as you'd be pleased to know. And this time looking at adjectives. Now the adjectives in Spanish have to agree with the noun that they qualify. That sounds a little complicated. It simply means that if you've got a masculine noun, you have to make the adjective masculine too. And a feminine noun has to have a feminine adjective. Everything will be much bigger after you listen to this episode. So I hope you enjoy it.

So in this week's show, we're going to be looking at adjectives. Adjectives, sometimes known as describing words, words which tell you what something is like. We're going to start by looking at sort of standard adjectives. Let's take a word, for example, contento. What does contento mean? Happy. Happy, yeah. I would say, estoi.

contento. I'm happy. I'm happy. I'm happy. I'm contento. I'm okay. Now Kara, you wouldn't say, I'm content, what would you say? I'm contenta. Contenta. So, the word contento changes because Kara is female. Contento? Content. Contento. Content.

Perfect. Now, we can see, Mark is a contento. Cara, but let's say we were talking about the children Los Ninos Los Ninos are happy Now we've got to think about two things here First of all, the plural verb It's not esta but

Estan So los Ninos Estan and what would we say for happy in this situation Contentos Exactly contentos. Los ninos

are contentos. Los ninos so the children are happy. Los ninos is a masculine plural noun and we're using the masculine plural adjective. If we were talking about

female children, Las Ninias, we wouldn't say contentos but contentas. Exactly. So how would you say

the girls the children are happy. The are happy. The menians are contented. Very well. So,

The Homme is contento. The man is contento. The woman

is contenta? The woman is contenta? Los Hombers are content contentos?

Los Homes are contentos? And the women are contentas.

Las Mujres are contentas. Very good. So four different versions of

this adjective, contento, contenta, contentos, contentas, depending on what this

subject is. This is a pattern that's very common in Spanish with adjectives that the

masculine singular form ends in O, the feminine singular, ah, the masculine plural os, and the feminine plural, as. Now there's one other thing that I want to bring in here, and that is the fact that you use

the masculine plural form if there is a mixed group. So if you've got, for example, Mark and Kara are happy, Mark and cara are contentos.

You use the masculine plural form, even though there is a female involved as well. In fact, if there are 100 females and just one male, you still have to use the masculine plural form. It's just the way it is. Wasn't me that made up that rule,

but that's the way it is. Mark and Cara are contentos. Mark and Cara are contentos. Los Niños and the nines are contentos.

Los ninos and the nios and las nias are contentos. Very well. Okay, we're going to look at a couple of other adjectives now and they are the words

for black and white. The word for black is Negro. Negro. So black also changes depending on what is being described. So, for example,

El Libre Negro. El Libro Negro. So what would that mean? A black book? Yeah, the black book. El Libro Negro. The black book.

If we were talking about a house, we would be talking about a casa. So, La Casa Negra. La Casa Negra. Perfecto. Now, let's imagine we're talking about plural black things. So, for example, we could say, the Gatos

Negro Los Gatos Negro And can you remember what A cat is? A cat, yeah

It's not a cake Somebody once said that a cat was a cake

but then you end up with a funny tasting cake anyway a cat so

Los Gatos Negros are the black cats Los Gatos Negro Los Gatos

Negros How would you say the cats are black? Los Gatos are negras Now, here's a question Are the cats always black?

Is that an inherent quality of the cats? Or is it just something that's temporary? Is it because they just happen to be black at the moment? No, it's probably permanent so it would be

Los Gatos are Negro Los Gatos are Negro Very well Los Gatos are colour

does tend to be a fairly permanent thing so you're more likely to use ser when you're talking about a color

Los Gatos are negro Los Gatos are negro Very well let's talk about something else that might

be the color black we could talk about La mesa La mesa is The table Yeah

so Tienin'un a mesa para quattro, remember back to that. So the black tables. Las meses negras. Now just watch the

formation of the plural. It's las mesas. Las mesas negras. Las mesas negras. Okay, so you got the adjective right. Las mesas negras. Perfect. Now we've spoken about black.

which is negro, negra, negros, negras. Let's talk about white. Blanco. Blanco, meaning white, is the masculine singular version. So let's go back to that cat. El gato is blanco. The cat is white. The cat is white.

Or if we just wanted to talk about the white cat. we would say El Gato Blanco. El Gato Blanco. Now, let's think of another animal that is a white animal and it's a feminine animal. We could talk about La Paloma. La Paloma. Do you know what a paloma is? I don't have a clue.

A polar bear? No, it's not a polar bear. If I say, Una paloma blanca Does that mean anything to you? No Okay Kara you're too young Una paloma blanca

Does this not mean anything at all to you? No Okay we're just going to stop proceedings for just a moment When you're not listening to Coffee Break Spanish You can still practice your Spanish with their regular posts on social media Find us on Facebook Just search for Coffee Break Spanish

We're Learn Spanish on Twitter and you can keep up with the team through our regular posts on Instagram. Follow coffee break languages. It's our mission to help you turn your downtime into your due time. Okay, let's get on with the lesson. Okay, we're back. I've just shown Kara, Una Paloma Blanca, by the George Baker selection on YouTube, and Kara now knows Una Paloma Blanca.

I do. But I'm not going to sing it. Good. a paloma Blanca Let's get back to the grammar here Paloma is a dove

It's actually a pigeon too Okay But when you're talking about Paloma Blanca It's a white pigeon So it's a dove Onea Paloma is feminine

So Blanca is also feminine A paloma Blanca One Paloma Blanca A cato Blanco A cato Blanco

Two gatos Blanco Dos palomas Blancas Very bien So we've had Blanco, Negro We've also had

Contento, there are lots of adjectives that end in O and then obviously take their feminine ending A, O's for masculine plural and ass for feminine plural Now there are some adjectives that you'll come across that end in E, the letter E so in Spanish that has the sound E.

think for example Interesante Now I'm going to take you back to a little song that we did way back in Unit 2 I think There are much cosas interesting Yeah, there's muchas Cozazes That's quite an interesting line

Because let's think of it, it's got two adjectives in there Muchas Muchas meaning many And And interesantes meaning interesting so

much things so muchas so the muchas works like blanco blanca blancos

blankas it becomes muchas because we're talking about causes here and

interes has a slightly different ending it ends in ES

so the singular version of interesting ends in the sound E, interesting,

and the plural version adds an is, interesting. Interestates. Another couple of examples could include Intelligente. Intelligente.

So, for example, Mark is intelligent. Mark is intelligent. Kara is also. Mark and Kara is also intelligent.

Mark and Kara are intelligentes. Mark and Kara are intelligent and modest. Yes, clear. So we've got

Intelligente, we've got interesting. Let's take another one that begins with an I important. So the singular form is important, regardless of whether it's masculine or feminine, an libro importante.

An libro importante. One person important. An important person. And when we put that into the plural, then we have two persons. importantes. Dos personas importantes. Dos personas importantes. Very well. Okay, we've had words that end in O in the dictionary form.

So, for example, contento. And then the endings that come after that would be contenta, contentos, contentas. And we've also had words that end in i. So intelligente and the plural form, intelligentes. Let's put some of these adjectives to work now, because we're going to describe people and to do that we need just a few more words to cover the vocabulary that you need to talk about people.

Let's begin with alto. Alto is linked to the English words altitude and altimeter and so on. It means literally high, but when we're talking about a person, it means tall. So, an ombre alto. How would you see a tall woman? A woman.

Very well, Una Mujer Alta. So, alto, Alta, altos and altas, of course. Now the opposite of alto is Bajo. Bajo. Bajo means small.

It literally means law, just as alto, literally means high. But you talk about a person a person a big a person

a so an man bajo a man bajo

a a a much a okay let's learn the words for

thin and not so thin delgado delgado delgado delgado means thin

Delgado Delgado And the feminine form Delgada Delgada And the Spanish word for fat is Gordo

Gordo Gordo The feminine form being Gorda Gorda Now El Gordo in Spain is actually the name of the lottery

So you talk about El Gordo being the big fat prize that you win if you win the lottery El Gordo. El Gordo. Now, another couple of words here that we're going to learn quickly is moreno.

Moreno. Moreno means dark, skinned, dark featured, so dark hair, dark skin and so on. So, moreno. Moreno. Which becomes obviously morena, morenos, morenas. And the other word is rubio. Rubio, meaning blonde, or fair hair and fair skinned and so on. Rubio.

Rubio. That's R-U-B-I-O, Rubio. Rubio. And it becomes rubia, rubios, rubias. Now, so far, we've been looking at adjectives to describe things or to describe people and so on. One thing that I've not mentioned yet, and that is where the adjective comes. Think of this. El gato blanco.

El Ombre Intelligente La Mujer Alta In each case the adjective is coming after the noun

Yes, it's coming after the noun El Ombre Intelligente is coming after the noun But that's not the way we do it In English In English we say The intelligent man

El Ombre Intelligente You can see in Spanish El Intelligent Ombre it sounds very strange. There are some situations where adjectives do come before the noun,

but we're going to cover them next week. We're going to leave this here this week. It's very much the start of something this week. We're going to be continuing with this next week, and hopefully we'll be putting these adjectives to good use in a little activity fairly soon. And that's where we're going to leave it today for this edition of Coffee Break Spanish.

Thanks for joining us, and we hope it's been useful. You can join the Coffee Break. break Spanish community on Facebook at facebook.com slash coffeebreakspanish and follow at learn Spanish on Twitter. Much a gratis and hasta pronto. This is the production of the Radiolingua network. Find out more at radiolingua.com.