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Saying he/she is... with adjectives

The previous page explained and allowed you to practise some simple Spanish sentences using estoy with a masculine or feminine adjective to make sentences meaning I am .... On this page, we'll make some sentences meaning he/she is ....

Saying he/she is in Spanish

To make sentences meaning he/she is ... with adjectives like cansado (tired), you use the Spanish verb form está:

está he/she is ..., he's ..., she's ...

As with estoy, there's no real equivalent in Spanish to having the contraction (he's) or not (he is): there's just a single verb form está. And as with estoy, it generally isn't grammatical to put a pronoun in Spanish– the single word está covers the meaning of "he/she is ...".

Using está with an adjective

As with estoy, the form of the adjective must match or agree with the gender of the subject. In English, the gender of the subject is reflected in the choice of he or she. In Spanish, it is generally reflected in the form of the adjective:

(You will recall that an adjective not ending in -o/-a such as triste generally does not change between masculine and feminine. In this case, the sentence will be ambiguous between he is ... and she is ....)

So, for example:

está enfermo
he's ill
está enferma
she's ill
está cansado
he's tired
está despierta
she's awake
está triste
he/she is sad
(Adjectives ending in -e don't distinguish between masculine and feminine.)

Exercise: make sentences with está and an adjective

Now you can practise making some sentences with está. On each turn, you'll be asked to make a sentence using the same adjectives as before, meaning either he is ... or she is ... or– just so you don't forget estoyI am ....


If you don't see the two buttons, click here

Next...

On the next page, you'll learn and practise making Spanish sentences that mean you are ....

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