Here you have the most common endings for adjectives. In some cases, you will find a lot of information in only one blog. When this happens, take your time to read one or two rules and to practise them, and when you feel comfortable, continue with the rest. There is no need to study all your grammar in one go! The important thing is to be consistent and to do it some minutes a day.
-In the first place, we have feminine and masculine adjectives, ending with -a/-o: la casa blanca, el edificio rojo. When an adjective ends with any other letter, they don’t change: un hombre grande, una mujer grande; una acción legal, un procedimiento legal.
–To negate an adjective, in many cases we put a negative prefix (a group of letter at the beginning of a word which carry a particular meaning, as “un” in “unnecessary” or “re” in “remake”). In Spanish we have “in” (necesario, innecesario; cómodo, incómodo) which becomes “im” in words starting with “p/b” for phonetical reasons: posible, imposible; borrable, imborrable. When the word starts with “r/l”, we only put “i” (legal, ilegal). Also remember to write “rr” after the prefix (rompible, irrompible). The other negative prefix is “des” (organizado, desorganizado), which sometimes becomes “dis” (funcional, disfuncional).
-As in English, we have adjectives ending with “able/ible”: washable is lavable, possible is posible, drinkable is potable, replaceable is reemplazable.
-We have adjectives ending with “ante/ente”. Many of them end with “ing” in English: changing is cambiante, relaxing is relajante, exciting is excitante.
–Another ending is “oso, osa”: a region with mountains is una región montañosa, a rainy place es un lugar lluvioso, a noisy place es un lugar ruidoso. In some cases, we have the “ous” ending: furious, furioso; nervous, nervioso; curious, curioso.
–The ending “izo, iza” refers to something that happens easily or frequently: olvidadizo (he tends to forget), resbaladizo (slippery, people usually fall there), un niño movedizo (he never stops moving).
-Adjectives that in English end with “ive” end with “ivo, iva”: activo, pasivo, agresivo.
-Some other common endings for adjectives are “al” (legal, usual, parcial, habitual), “ero, era” (casero, duradero, pendenciero), “esco, esca” (gigantesco, novelesco, burlesco), “dor, dora” (acogedor, abrumador, alborotador), “orio, oria” (promisorio, notorio, obligatorio), “ario, aria” (ordinario, voluntario, solidario), “iento, ienta” (sediento, hambriento, mugriento), “il” (infantil, juvenil, senil).
–Adjectives ending in “ista” could be either masculine or feminine (hombre o mujer egoísta, libro o película costumbrista). Do not change the final “a”.
–The ending “ón, ona” means that the person does something in excess (dormilón: he sleeps a lot, gritón: he shouts all the time).
-Adjectives ending with “cal” in English tend to finish with “co, ca” in Spanish: lógico, práctico, cínico, crítico.
-As in English, we distinguish between, for example, depressing and depressed (deprimente, deprimido), obsessing and obsessed (obsesionante, obsesionado), thrilling and thrilled (emocionante, emocionante). However, notice that aburrido could be boring or bored.
As I said before, we have more endings, but this blog covers the most common ones.
