🎯 Why This Matters
To make speech colorful and detailed.
Ability to provide qualitative characteristics to objects.
🇪🇸 The Challenge
Position and Order. Unlike Spanish or French, where adjectives often follow the noun (e.g., 'la casa blanca'), English places them strictly before the noun. Also, the rigid 'OSASCOMP' order for multiple adjectives is unintuitive.
🇲🇽🇨🇴🇦🇷 Word Order Instinct
Problem: Your Spanish word order puts adjectives AFTER nouns
Watch out: Translating 'el carro rojo' as 'the car red' instead of 'the red car'
✅ Fix: Think: ADJECTIVE + NOUN. Always. No exceptions for basic adjectives.
🧠 Mental Note: Before saying any noun, ask: 'Do I need an adjective?' If yes, say it FIRST.
🇪🇸 Same challenge, different examples
Advantage: You already handle some prenominal adjectives (gran hombre, buen amigo)
Watch out: But most adjectives still follow the noun in Spanish
✅ Fix: Extend your 'gran/buen' instinct to ALL adjectives in English
🧠 Visual Explanation (The Mental Fix)
The Adjective Train
OSASCOMP: Opinion-Size-Age-Shape-Color-Origin-Material-Purpose. Say it like a magic spell before describing anything with multiple adjectives.
🗣️ Pronunciation Guide
How Spanish speakers should pronounce this structure:
Silent letters in adjectives
Spanish Habit: Spanish speakers pronounce every letter
English Reality: Many English adjectives have silent letters or reduced syllables
Examples:
- comfortable → /ˈkʌmftəbl/ (3 syllables, not 4)
- interesting → /ˈɪntrəstɪŋ/ (3 syllables, not 4)
- different → /ˈdɪfrənt/ (2 syllables, not 3)
Practice: Record yourself and compare with native audio. Count syllables!
📖 How It Works
Teacher Recommendation: Self-study friendly
Time Investment: 3 hours
🔑 Signal Words (Memory Anchors)
These words/phrases appear with this structure:
| English | Spanish | Example |
|---|---|---|
| very | muy | a very tall building / un edificio muy alto |
| quite | bastante | quite expensive / bastante caro |
| extremely | extremadamente | extremely difficult / extremadamente difícil |
| rather | más bien | rather cold / más bien frío |
| such a/an | tan / qué | such a beautiful day / qué día tan hermoso |
💬 Real Examples
Let's see this structure in action with correct vs incorrect usage:
Example 1: Describing a house (adjective position)
✅ CORRECT: "I live in a white house."
🇪🇸 Translation: "Vivo en una casa blanca."
❌ COMMON MISTAKE: "I live in a house white."
Why wrong? English adjectives go BEFORE the noun, not after like in Spanish
Example 2: Multiple adjectives (OSASCOMP order)
✅ CORRECT: "She bought a lovely small antique Chinese vase."
🇪🇸 Translation: "Ella compró un hermoso pequeño jarrón chino antiguo."
❌ COMMON MISTAKE: "She bought a Chinese antique small lovely vase."
Why wrong? Adjective order is fixed: Opinion(lovely) → Size(small) → Age(antique) → Origin(Chinese)
Example 3: Adjective with linking verb
✅ CORRECT: "The soup tastes delicious."
🇪🇸 Translation: "La sopa sabe deliciosa."
❌ COMMON MISTAKE: "The soup tastes deliciously."
Why wrong? After linking verbs (be, seem, taste, look, feel), use ADJECTIVE not adverb
✏️ Practice Exercises
Ready to test your understanding? Let's practice!