Demonstrative Adjectives and Pronouns

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

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 wouldn’t say, “I want this apple s ” or “I want that apple s.” 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.

Guess what: Spanish has THREE demonstrative pronouns: Do you want this apple? ¿Quieres esta manzana? 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 you’re 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 that’s parked on the other side of next week!

ms = masculine singular fs = feminine singular mp = masculine plural fp = feminine plural ms este (this)ese (that)aquel (that way over there) fs esta (this)esa (that)aquella (that way over there) mp estos (these)esos (those)aquellos (those way over there) fp estas (those)esas (those)aquellas (those way over there)

What we’ve discussed so far is demonstrative ADJECTIVES. Adjectives describe nouns: Quiero esta manzana. – I want this apple. Now we’ll talk about demonstrative PRONOUNS. Pronouns take the place of nouns: No quiero esta manzana; quiero ésa. – I don’t 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 it’s a pronoun, there’ll be an accent mark over the first “e” in the word. If there’s a noun after it, it’s an adjective; if there’s not, it’s a pronoun.

You would NEVER say, “Quiero ese uno” for “I want that one.” You’d just say “Quiero ése.“ Quiero ese libro. – Quiero ése. I want that book. – I want that one. Quiero esos libros. – Quiero ésos. I want those books. – I want those. Quiero aquella silla. – Quiero aquélla. I want that chair way over there. – I want that one way over there. Quiero aquellas sillas. – Quiero aquéllas. I want those chairs way over there. – I want those way over there.

If you study the book, you’re 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 ése. In the above example, “ése” refers to “libro.” Juan is my brother. – I didn’t know that. Juan es mi hermano. – Yo no sabia eso. In the above example, “eso” (“that”) doesn’t refer to an object; it refers to the fact that Juan is my brother. Since you don’t have a masculine or feminine object that the pronoun refers to, you use the neuter form.