Demonstratives
Demonstratives
Demonstratives
Do you want
THIS apple?
Watch out for the masculine forms: remember that, while the
masculine singular ends in –e, the plural ends in –os. Don’t get mixed
up and write “esto” or “estes.”
Notice that the only difference between “este” and “ese”, “esta” and
“esa,” etc., is the “t”. Take the “t” out of “este” (this), and you have
“ese” (that). “A student of mine remembered it this way: ‘This’ and
‘these’ have t’s; ‘that’ and ‘those’ don’t.” In other words, the words
that mean “this” and “these” have t’s in them (este, esta, estos, estas);
the words that mean “that” and “those” don’t have t’s in them (ese,
esa, esos, esas).
Guess what: Spanish has THREE
demonstrative pronouns:
Do you want this apple?
¿Quieres esta manzana?
No.
No.
• If you use all three, “aquel” is the farthest away. But if you’re not using
all three, you choose “aquel” rather than “ese” if you want to show that
something is far away.
I want to ride in that (ese) car in front of the building, not in that (aquel)
car that’s parked on the other side of next week!
ms este (this) ese (that) aquel (that way over there)
fs esta (this) esa (that) aquella (that way over there)
mp estos (these) esos (those) aquellos (those way over there)
fp estas (those) esas (those) aquellas (those way over there)
ms = masculine singular
fs = feminine singular
mp = masculine plural
fp = feminine plural
What we’ve discussed so far is demonstrative ADJECTIVES.
Adjectives describe nouns:
Quiero esta manzana. – I want this apple.
Now we’ll talk about demonstrative PRONOUNS. Pronouns
take the place of nouns:
No quiero esta manzana; quiero ésa. – I don’t want this
apple; I want that one.
The only difference between a demonstrative ADJECTIVE
and a demonstrative PRONOUN in Spanish is the accent
mark. If it’s a pronoun, there’ll be an accent mark over the
first “e” in the word.
If there’s a noun after it, it’s an adjective; if there’s not, it’s a
pronoun.
You would NEVER say, “Quiero ese uno” for “I want that
one.” You’d just say “Quiero ése.“
Quiero ese libro. – Quiero ése.
I want that book. – I want that one.
Quiero esos libros. – Quiero ésos.
I want those books. – I want those.
Quiero aquella silla. – Quiero aquélla.
I want that chair way over there. – I want that one way
over there.