Tongue of Fire

"And [the apostles] saw what appeared to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in foreign languages as the Spirit enabled them." - Acts 2:3-4

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Lesson 1.7: Adjective Placement

Now that you know how to decline adjectives, there’s one more thing to consider when you’re using adjectives: where to place them. As you’ve seen throughout the course, Spanish adjectives are typically placed after the noun they modify, unlike in English. However, there are a few situations in which an adjective can be placed before the noun.

Adjectives that always precede the noun

There are a few adjectives that always come before the noun they modify. Most of them are limiting adjectives, which clarify which thing is being referred to instead of describing its qualities.

The main ones are:

Examples: Necesito otro lápiz. (I need another pencil.); La posible causa del accidente es el hielo. (The possible cause of the accident is ice.); Cierta persona preguntó por ti. (A certain person asked about you.)

By no means is that an exhaustive list, but you don’t even have to memorize the ones we listed. All you need is to understand the general pattern: limiting adjectives come before the noun, while descriptive adjectives come after the noun.

Additionally, the following adjectives that describe goodness precede the noun:

Pre-noun placement for emphasis

Descriptive adjectives can optionally be placed before the noun to convey emphasis, emotion, or a poetic quality. That mostly just happens in literature, but it’s occasionally used in regular conversation, too.

Examples: ¡Ese fue un impresionante partido! (That was an impressive game!); Volverán las oscuras golondrinas (The Dark Swallows Flew, the title of a Spanish poem)

Apocopation

Certain pre-noun adjectives drop a few letters from the end when they’re placed before a masculine singular noun, a process called apocopation. Most adjectives don’t, but there are some common ones that do. The most common adjectives that use apocopation are:

Example: Yo no veo ningun carro blanco. (I don’t see any white cars.) Example: San Antonio (San Antonio; Saint Antonio) Example: Es una gran mujer. (She is a great woman.) Example: Ese cuesta cien dólares. (That costs one hundred dollars.) Example with two apocopated adjectives: Este es un buen sándwich. (This is a good sandwich.)
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