El número gramatical: singular y plural

In Spanish, the noun ending reflects the number of people or things to which it refers. Singular nouns are used to talk about only one person or thing, whereas plural nouns refer to two or more people or things. The plural forms of nouns have different endings, as you will see below.

If a noun ends in a vowel, the plural is formed by simply adding an –s, for example:

Play Audio una mesa Play Audio dos mesas

Nouns that end in consonants are made plural by adding –es, for example:

Play Audio una pared Play Audio cuatro paredes

Nouns that end in –z are made plural by changing the –z to –c and then adding –es, for example:

Play Audio una luz Play Audio dos luces
Play Audio un pez Play Audio tres peces illustration of three fish

It is important to note that while some nouns refer to more than one person (and have thus a plural meaning), their form is singular. These are referred to as collective nouns. Two of the most important and commonly used examples of collective nouns are:

Play Audio la gente Play Audio la familia

La concordancia de género y número con sustantivos y adjetivos

In Spanish, adjectives used to modify nouns must agree with the noun in both gender and number. In other words, if the noun you are using is feminine singular, you will have to change the form of the adjective so that it too is feminine singular. Note that while the gender of noun is an inherent property, the gender of an adjective changes according to the noun.

Some adjectives have two endings, –o in the masculine or –a in the feminine (e.g. blanco/blanca). Others have only one ending, such as –inteligente, which does not change, and can be used to modify either masculine or feminine nouns.

The plurals of adjectives are formed in the same way that you just learned for nouns. In other words, by adding an –s if the word ends in a vowel or by adding –es if the word ends in a consonant, for example:

singular plural
femenino Play Audio la niña alta Play Audio las niñas altas illustration of two tall girls
masculino Play Audio el niño alto illustration of a tall boy Play Audio los niños altos
femenino Play Audio la mujer delgada Play Audio las mujeres delgadas
masculino Play Audio el hombre delgado Play Audio los hombres delgados
femenino Play Audio la muchacha inteligente Play Audio las muchachas inteligentes
masculino Play Audio el muchacho inteligente Play Audio los muchachos inteligentes
femenino Play Audio una persona joven Play Audio unas personas jóvenes

Remember that some nouns which refer to many people or things are actually singular:

Play Audio La familia es grande.
a large family

Foto: Francisco Antunes CC BY 2.0
Play Audio La gente es agradable.

 

 

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Spanish I: Copyright © by Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Cover photo by Patrick McDonald, “La Gitana” is licensed under CC-BY-NC. Available on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pat_mcdonald/8518195036/.

Pressbooks: Simple Book Production