Beginner friendly guide to demonstrative adjectives and pronouns in Spanish

¿Esto o Esta? Master the use of Spanish demonstrative adjectives and pronouns with our beginner-friendly guide.
Kerry Campion

Knowing your demonstratives can come to save the day in your Spanish language journey, especially early on when you’re still boosting your vocabulary.

For example, imagine you’ve finally pumped yourself up to go order something in Spanish, but your mind goes blank. Luckily you’ve got a get out of jail free card because you learnt your demonstrations.

“Esto por favor,” (this one) you say while pointing at that delicious pincho de tortilla (Spanish omlette) on display with the rest of the tapas at the bar.

That’s just one situation when demonstratives can come to your rescue when you forget how to say something. So let’s make sure you’re never lost for words when trying to order something or show someone exactly what you want.

Quick view: demonstratives in Spanish 

  • Demonstrative adjectives are “this, that, these, and those” and are followed by a noun. For example, “this cat” or “este gato” in Spanish.
  • In Spanish there are eight demonstrative adjectives: ese, estos, esta, estas, aquel, aquellos, aquella, and aquellas. Which one you use depends on the gender and number of the noun they’re modifying.
  • Demonstrative pronouns replace the noun entirely and are the equivalent of saying “that one” in English.

First up: what are demonstrative adjectives in Spanish?

A demonstrative adjective (adjetivo demostrativo in Spanish) is a word that indicates or points out a specific noun in a sentence. For example, “this,” “that,” “these,” and “those.” These adjectives help to clarify which particular thing or things are being referred to.

They also convey the distance between the noun and the speaker. For example, if something is close to the speaker, they’ll use “this/these,” whereas if the noun is farther away they’ll use “that/those.” Imagine you’re pointing to a mountain range in the distance. You wouldn’t say “these mountains.” You’d say, “those mountains.”

There are some key differences between English and Spanish demonstrative adjectives that can cause confusion for Spanish learners. Don’t worry though, once you’ve nailed gender in Spanish they’re pretty easy.

Differences between English & Spanish demonstrative adjectives

English only makes a distinction between singular (“this” or “that”) and plural demonstratives (“these” and “those”.) Spanish goes a step further based on whether or not the noun it’s referring to is masculine or feminine (see the table below.)

In English, we only have two sets of demonstratives to indicate the distance between the speaker and the noun: “this/these” and “that/those.” However, Spanish has a third class of demonstrative that indicates something quite far away from the speaker (aquel/aquella or aquellos/aquellas).

In English, if a bird is on the bench in front of us, we’d say, “that bird,” but we’d also say, “that bird” if we were pointing to a bird flying high above us in the sky. In Spanish this would be “ese pájaro” and “aquel pájaro” respectively.

 

This/These (next to the speaker)

That/Those (near the speaker)

That/Those (further away from the speaker) 

Masculine singular

Este

Ese

Aquel

Feminine singular

Esta

Esa

Aquella

Masculine plural

Estos

Esos

Aquellos

Feminine plural

Estas

Esas

Aquellas

Examples of demonstrative adjectives

Demonstrative Adjective

Spanish

English translation

Este

Este juego me aburre. ¿podemos jugar a otro?

This game is boring me. Can we play another one?

Ese

Ese gato no me gusta. Tiene muy mala leche.

I don’t like that cat. He’s really mean.

Esta

Esta paella está riquísima.

This paella is really tasty.

Esa

Esa chica es la sobrina de Roberto.

That girl is Roberto’s niece.

Estos

Hay que llevar estos libros al colegio.

These books need to be taken to school.

Estas

Estas mesas están muy sucias.

These tables are really dirty.

Aquel

En aquel tiempo bailábamos mucho.

Back in the day we danced a lot.

Aquella

¿Vés aquella chica allí?

Do you see that girl over there?

Aquellos

Me acuerdo de aquellos años con mucho cariño.

I remember those years with a lot of affection .

Aquellas

¿Me pasas aquellas tijeras allí?

Can you pass me those scissors over there?

Exercise: write the correct demonstrative adjective

Choose the correct demonstrative adjective.

  1. (Este/esta) ordenador no va, tenemos que comprar otro.  (This computer isn’t working. We have to buy another one.)
  2. ¿Ves (estas/esta) mesas? Tenemos que moverlas a la otra habitación. (Do you see those tables? We have to move them to the other room.)
  3. (Ese/Esa) niño se porta muy bien en clase. (That boy behaves really well in class.)
  4. ¿Ves (aquel/aquella) pájaro allí? Es un ruiseñor. (Do you see that bird over there? It’s a robin red breast.)
  5. (Aquel/aquella) cuadro es muy bonito. ¿Quién lo pintó? (That painting is really nice. Who painted it?) 

Next: what are demonstrative pronouns?

Now that we’ve looked at demonstrative adjectives, let’s look at their cousins: demonstrative pronouns (pronombres demostrativos.)

A demonstrative pronoun substitutes a noun, and in Spanish, they can vary by gender and number. Note how when we looked at demonstrative adjectives, they were all followed by a noun (“ese gato“.) However, we use a demonstrative pronoun to refer to a noun without mentioning it specifically. This would be the equivalent of saying “that one” in English.

Wait – what are neuter demonstrative pronouns?

Don’t panic, this isn’t a secret gender!

A neuter pronoun just means a pronoun that’s used when you aren’t referring to any specific noun. For example, if you hear a loud bang you might ask, “what’s that?!” without knowing what caused the sound. In Spanish, that would be an example of a neuter pronoun.

These neuter demonstrative pronouns will always take masculine forms as a default.

Examples of neuter pronouns: 

  • ¿Qué es esto? (what’s this?)
  • ¿Qué es eso? (what’s that?)
  • Quiero esto. (I want this.)
  • ¿Qué es aquello? (what’s that over there?)

Y esta lección se ha acabado! Your next steps…

Once you’ve nailed demonstratives, you might want to take a look at possessive adjectives and the rules around definite articles in Spanish. These are both good follow-on lessons from this one. If you found this lesson a bit challenging, you might want to revisit Spanish nouns.

If you’re ready to take your Spanish up a notch, then consider reaching out to a qualified Spanish tutor.

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Kerry Campion is a copywriter in the language learning space. Her journey with language began with her BA in English, she then went on to teach English as a second language in 3 countries. She speaks English, Spanish, French, and is learning Irish. When not writing, she's out walking with her German Shepherd, Kira.

Kerry Campion is a copywriter in the language learning space. Her journey with language began with her BA in English, she then went on to teach English as a second language in 3 countries. She speaks English, Spanish, French, and is learning Irish. When not writing, she's out walking with her German Shepherd, Kira.

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