Reference · module 6
People and descriptions
Everything this module explains, on one page.
Family
Name the people in your family.
- la madre, el padre, la hermana, el hermano, la hija, el hijo, la esposa, el esposo. Most come in pairs that differ only in the last letter.
- The masculine plural covers a mixed group: los padres means the parents, los hermanos means the brothers and sisters together.
- mi, tu, su, nuestro. They agree in number: mis hermanos, and nuestro agrees in gender too: nuestra casa.
The mistake you are about to make
los padres = отцы
los padres = родители
Padre is father, so padres reads as fathers. A masculine plural covers a mixed group: los padres are your parents.
Describing people
Describe somebody in two or three sentences.
- alto, bajo, joven, viejo, simpático, tranquilo. An adjective ending in -o has four forms; one ending in -e or a consonant has two.
- It goes AFTER the noun: un hombre alto, una casa grande. That is the opposite of English and it is almost never broken.
- muy makes it stronger, bastante softens it: muy alto, bastante alto. Neither of them ever changes form.
The mistake you are about to make
un alto hombre
un hombre alto
"A tall man" puts the adjective first. The Spanish one follows the noun: un hombre alto.
Ser or estar
Choose between the two verbs for to be.
- ser is what something is: identity, origin, profession, a lasting quality. Soy médico. Es alto. Somos de Rusia.
- estar is how it is and where it is: a state that could change, and a position. Estoy cansado. La casa está allí.
- Some adjectives change meaning with the verb: es aburrido means he is boring, está aburrido means he is bored. Same word, two people described.
The mistake you are about to make
Soy cansado.
Estoy cansado.
"I am tired" uses the one English "to be", and soy comes out. Tiredness passes, so it is estar: estoy cansado.
Jobs
Say what you do for a living.
- profesor, médico, enfermero, ingeniero, camarero, estudiante. Most have a feminine form in -a: profesora, médica, enfermera.
- estudiante and others ending in -e do not change: el estudiante, la estudiante. Only the article says which.
- The article is left out after ser: Soy profesor. And the longer version takes de: Trabajo de camarero.
The mistake you are about to make
Soy un profesor.
Soy profesor.
English needs the article — I am a teacher — so un comes with it. After ser Spanish drops it: soy profesor.