Position of Spanish adjectives

Where do I place my Spanish adjectives?

Please memorize this general rule:
Spanish adjectives stand behind the noun they refer to.

That's a big difference for any English native speaker – as we tend to place our adjectives before the nouns.
So, if you are describing your brand new red shoes to your Spanish friends, make sure to place the adjective “rojo” (red) after your “zapatos” (shoes).

💡 For example:
los zapatos rojos – the red shoes
la casa grande – the big house
la casa roja – the red house
el camarero simpático – the likeable waiter

Sometimes Spanish adjectives will be placed in front of the noun.
In those cases the change in placement of the adjective intends to show you that the speakers aim for a different meaning than usually.

Let's analyse the following examples.
The first sentence shows the regular meaning of the adjective “viejo” (old) – which means “well advanced in years”.
With the second sentence the speaker wants to emphasize that the person is a good old friend and their friendship dates back for ages.

💡 For example:
un amigo viejo – an old friend (my friend is well advanced in years)
un viejo amigo – an old friend (our friendship dates way back)

Spanish Grammar

Introduction

📂 Spanish Grammar in a Nutshell

Articles

Definite article in Spanish

Indefinite article in Spanish

Nouns

Gender of Spanish nouns

Cases in Spanish

Building the Spanish plural

Adjectives & Adverbs

Spanish adjectives

Adjectives and their position in a sentences

Feminine form of Spanish adjectives

Plural

Comparison of adjectives

Superlative

Spanish adverbs

Comparison of adverbs

Irregular forms of adverbs

Verbs

Spanish verb classes

Verb stem

Present tense / presente

presente: exceptions

ser & estar

Past participle / participio

Present perfect / perfecto

indefinido

Simple past / imperfecto

Past perfect /plusquamperfecto

Future tense / futuro

Condicional / conditional

Condicional II / conditional II

subjuntivo

subjuntivo presente

subjuntivo pretérito perfecto compuesto

subjuntivo pretérito imperfecto

subjuntivo pretérito pluscuamperfecto

Imperative / imperativo

Passive / pasiva

gerundio

📂 Irregular verbs

Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns

Word order & Sentences

Spanish basic sentence structure

Spanish negation

Spanish interrogative sentences

Useful information

Spanish numbers from zero to ten

Spanish numbers from 11 - 20

Spanish numbers from 21 to 1000

Days of the week

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