Where are you from?
¿De dónde eres?
Learn how to answer this question in Spanish
Hello again! Today we are going to learn how to ask for personal details, such as nationalities. As you can see below, nationalities can change depending on gender. We are going to divide the adjectives in three categories: first, adjectives ending in –o (male) and –a (female), for instance “mexicano – mexicana”.
The second ones, male adjectives ending in –s. In this case you might add –a to turn it into a female adjective, for example, inglés (male) inglesa (female). In third place, we have unisex adjectives, when the nationality adjective is the same for both genders, like canadiense (for men and women coming from Canada).
From now on we are going to set the following rule: adjectives agree in gender and number with the nouns they qualify
Nationalities in Spanish: Lesson structure
Examples
El niño es americano – La niñ__ es american__
Los niños de la escuela son americanos – las niñ__s de la escuela son american__s
Now let’s have a look at the new words you’ve just learned
A bit of grammar : mastering gender
Have a look at the following explanation:
A noun is a word used to denote a person, place, thing or idea.
Person: John, girl, dentist
Place: garden, university, Venezuela
Thing: book, car, tomato
Idea: liberty, despair, intelligence
In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine.
Nouns that end in -o are usually masculine. Nouns that end in -a are usually feminine. One cannot predict the gender of a noun that stands for a non-living thing.
| Masculino | Femenino | Masculino o femenino |
| – o libro | – a casa | – e clase (f.) baile (m.) |
| -ción la canción -dad la edad | consonante país (m.) flor (f.) |
Exceptions
There are many exceptions to these rules, that you can learn just by practice. A few examples:
- el día
- el planeta
- el mapa
- el idioma
- el problema
- el sofá
Ok! Now you can travel the world! The Spanish language is the second most spoken language in the planet, after Chinese and before English. Wherever you go, you’ll can tell others what your nationality is and understand theirs.
