Demonstrative Adjectives and Pronouns

Demonstrative adjectives and pronouns DEMONSTRATE, which means show. Which flag? THIS flag.

English has two sets of demonstrative pronouns:

Do you want THIS apple?

No, I want THAT apple.

But what if there are TWO apples?

You wouldnt say, I want this apples or I want that apples. SURPRISE! In English, you have to change demonstrative adjectives to make them agree in number with the noun: I want THIS apple. BUT . . . I want THESE apples. I want THAT apple. BUT . . . I want THOSE apples.

Spanish looks a little less strange now, huh?

Spanish Demonstrative Adjectives:

masc. sing. fem. sing. masc. pl. fem. pl. este (this) esta (this) estos (these) estas (these) ese (that) esa (that) esos (those) esas (those)

Watch out for the masculine forms: remember that, while the masculine singular ends in e, the plural ends in os. Dont 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 ts; that and those dont. In other words, the words that mean this and these have ts in them (este, esta, estos, estas); the words that mean that and those dont have ts in them (ese, esa, esos, esas).

Guess what: Spanish has THREE demonstrative pronouns:

Do you want this apple? Quieres esta manzana? No. No. Do you want that apple? Quieres esa manzana? No. I want that apple way over there. No. Quiero aquella manzana.

 Este (this) is near the speaker. Ese (that) is not near the speaker. Aquel (feminine: aquella) is far away.
If you use all three, aquel is the farthest away. But if youre 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 thats parked on the other side of next week!

ms este (this) fs esta (this) mp estos (these) fp estas (those)

ese (that)

aquel (that way over there)

esa (that) aquella (that way over there) esos (those) aquellos (those way over there) esas (those) aquellas (those way over there)

ms = masculine singular fs = feminine singular mp = masculine plural fp = feminine plural

Click here to go to a brief practice.

What weve discussed so far is demonstrative ADJECTIVES. Adjectives describe nouns: Quiero esta manzana. I want this apple.

Now well talk about demonstrative PRONOUNS. Pronouns take the place of nouns:
No quiero esta manzana; quiero sa. I dont 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 its a pronoun, therell be an accent mark over the first e in the word. If theres a noun after it, its an adjective; if theres not, its a pronoun.

You would NEVER say, Quiero ese uno for I want that one. Youd just say Quiero se. Quiero ese libro. Quiero se. I want that book. I want that one. Quiero esos libros. Quiero sos. I want those books. I want those.

Quiero aquella silla. Quiero aqulla. I want that chair way over there. I want that one way over there.
Quiero aquellas sillas. Quiero aqullas. I want those chairs way over there. I want those way over there.

This wont be on the test, and you can skip this slide if you like. However, if you study the book, youre going to see esto, eso, and aquello. Those are neuter pronouns. What neuter means in this case is that the pronoun refers to an idea, not a thing:
I have two books. I want that one. Tengo dos libros. Quiero se.

In the above example, se refers to libro.

Juan is my brother. I didnt know that. Juan es mi hermano. Yo no sabia eso. In the above example, eso (that) doesnt refer to an object; it refers to the fact that Juan is my brother. Since you dont have a masculine or feminine object that the pronoun refers to, you use the neuter form.

Click here to go to your homework exercise.