Love-Spanish.com: What Colour Is The Coat?

Wednesday 19 February 2014

What Colour Is The Coat?

Introduction

This post is about the use of describing words/ adjectives in general, and more specifically about the use of the masculine/ singular form of a describing word/ adjective.

SCENARIO

Imagine you are talking to a relative, a friend or a work colleague. You are talking about a new coat you have bought. At some point the other person says to you something like: "what colour is the coat?"

In Spanish, the other person could say:

¿De qué color es el abrigo?

OUR TIP

The question is an invitation for you to say what colour your coat is. Here are some examples of how you could reply:

Es negro* (it is black);
Es blanco* (it is white);
Es marrón* (it is brown);
Es marrón claro* (it is light brown);
Es marrón oscuro* (it is dark brown);
Es azul* (it is blue);
Es azul marino* (it is navy blue);
Es gris* (it is grey);
Es rojo* (it is red);
Es verde* (it is green);
Es amarillo* (it is yellow);

Now you should practise answering the question:

¿De qué color es el abrigo?

*NB See Grammar below

*Grammar-Adjectives

	Gender	Number	Adjective
abrigo	masculine	singular	negro
abrigos	masculine	plural	negros
chaqueta	feminine	singular	negra
chaquetas	feminine	plural	negras

Noun-Adjective Agreement

See notes below on Noun-Adjective agreement

Noun-Adjective Agreement

As you can see above, in Spanish we use colours as describing words/ adjectives when saying what colour things are. Below follow some notes on how to choose the correct form of the adjective to say what colour something is.

Adjectives -Gender

When you use Spanish describing words/ adjectives, you need to bear in mind that for each describing word in English, there are often two related but different describing words/ adjectives in Spanish. The reason being that Spanish describing words/ adjectives have to 'agree' with the gender (masculine or feminine) of the person they describe. Most Spanish describing words have similar but separate words for each of the two genders (for example, rojo/ roja). A few, however have one single form (for example, verde).

Thus when you come to use a describing word to say what colour something is, you need to check whether the corresponding Spanish describing word/ adjective has:

One single form to describe both a male and female persons (for example , verde)
Two separate forms (for example, rojo/ roja).- If the describing word/ adjective has two separate forms, then you need to choose the form which matches the gender (masculine/ feminine) of the person to describe.

Adjectives -Number

When you use Spanish describing words/ adjectives, you also need to bear in mind that Spanish describing words/ adjectives have singular and plural* forms the same as nouns. A Spanish describing word/ adjective must also to 'agree' with the number (singular/ plural) of the thing it describes. For example, abrigo rojo (red coat) or abrigos rojos (red coats).

*NB View posts with details about the plural of Spanish words here.

Adjectives -Use

All the practical examples in this post refer to one coat, abrigo. Consequently, they require the masculine/ singular form of a describing word/ adjective, for example, rojo.

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