For one noun and one adjective, Spanish agreement is straightforward — pick the form that matches the noun's gender and number. The trouble starts when sentences get more complicated: one adjective modifying two nouns, two adjectives modifying one noun, mixed-gender groups, coordinated subjects, adjectives in pre-nominal position that lose their endings. Every one of these situations has a settled rule, and once you know them you can write any Spanish sentence with confidence that the agreement chain is intact.
This page is a reference rather than a tutorial. Use it to look up the specific situation you are facing. For the basic four-form and two-form patterns, see four-form adjectives and two-form adjectives.
The base case: one adjective, one noun
The adjective takes the form that matches the noun's gender and number. Nothing fancy.
Una mesa nueva, un coche nuevo, unas sillas nuevas, unos libros nuevos.
A new table, a new car, some new chairs, some new books.
The noun's gender and number cascade onto the article and the adjective in every cell of this paradigm. The adjective is in agreement — locked to its noun — regardless of distance or word order.
Mixed-gender groups: masculine plural by default
When a plural noun refers to a group containing both genders, the masculine plural form of the adjective is used. This is the most consequential resolution rule in Spanish grammar.
Mis padres son altos y rubios.
My parents are tall and blond. (father and mother together)
Los profesores del colegio son muy estrictos.
The teachers at the school are very strict. (could be all male or mixed)
The noun padres in mis padres literally means "fathers," but in plural it covers any mixed group including at least one father — so "father and mother" together is mis padres, and the adjective agrees masculine plural. The same masculine-default applies to los hijos (children, including daughters), los hermanos (siblings, including sisters), los abuelos (grandparents), los reyes (the king and queen), los duques (the duke and duchess).
This is one of the points where modern inclusive-language movements have proposed alternatives — les profesores, les hijes, doublet forms like padres y madres, hijos e hijas. These are visible in activist and academic writing in Spain but have not entered standard journalistic or formal usage. The RAE continues to recommend the masculine plural as the unmarked generic.
Coordinated subjects with mixed gender
When two singular nouns of different genders are coordinated, the adjective takes the masculine plural to cover the group.
El padre y la madre estaban cansados después del viaje.
The father and the mother were tired after the trip.
Mi hermano y mi hermana son altos y delgados.
My brother and my sister are tall and slim.
Note that this is not optional. El padre y la madre estaban cansadas (feminine plural) is wrong, and so is matching the adjective with only the nearer noun (el padre y la madre estaban cansada). The rule is unambiguous: mixed gender, plural number, masculine ending.
Coordinated subjects with same gender
When both coordinated nouns share the same gender, the adjective takes that gender in the plural — no resolution problem.
Mi madre y mi tía son altas y delgadas.
My mother and my aunt are tall and slim. (both feminine)
El padre y el hijo son muy parecidos.
The father and the son are very alike. (both masculine)
One adjective modifying two coordinated nouns
When a single adjective follows two or more coordinated nouns, the adjective is plural, and its gender is decided by the rule above: same gender → that gender; mixed gender → masculine.
Una falda y una camisa nuevas.
A new skirt and a new shirt. (both feminine, so feminine plural)
Un libro y una revista nuevos.
A new book and a new magazine. (mixed gender, so masculine plural)
Un coche y un camión rojos.
A red car and a red lorry. (both masculine, so masculine plural)
The number is always plural, even though each individual noun is singular — the adjective is modifying the combined set, not either noun alone.
Two adjectives modifying one noun
When two adjectives modify the same noun, each one independently agrees with the noun. The coordination word is usually y (or e before i-/hi-):
Un coche rojo y rápido.
A red and fast car.
Una mujer joven, inteligente y muy trabajadora.
A young, intelligent, and hardworking woman.
In the first sentence, both rojo and rápido are masculine singular. In the second, joven (two-form, no gender ending), inteligente (two-form), and trabajadora (four-form feminine) all agree with mujer in their respective ways. The four-form one shows the gender; the two-form ones do not — but all three agree in number (here singular).
When the two adjectives describe different aspects and are not coordinated with y, they often stack, with the more restrictive adjective closer to the noun:
Un vino blanco francés excelente.
An excellent French white wine.
Each adjective still agrees with the noun individually: blanco, francés, excelente — all masculine singular for vino.
Position effects: post-nominal vs pre-nominal
The default position for a Spanish adjective is after the noun. In that position, the adjective takes its full form with full agreement, as on every page in this section.
A small set of common adjectives, when placed before the noun, undergoes apocopation — they shorten in the masculine singular. The agreement is otherwise preserved, but the masculine singular form drops its final vowel.
| Full form | Apocopated form (before masc. sg.) | Example |
|---|---|---|
| bueno | buen | un buen amigo |
| malo | mal | un mal momento |
| primero | primer | el primer día |
| tercero | tercer | el tercer piso |
| uno | un | un libro |
| alguno | algún | algún problema |
| ninguno | ningún | ningún coche |
| grande | gran | un gran amigo / una gran amiga |
Hoy es un buen día para empezar algo nuevo.
Today is a good day to start something new.
Vivo en el tercer piso de un edificio del siglo pasado.
I live on the third floor of a building from the last century.
The grande → gran exception
Grande is special: it shortens to gran before both masculine and feminine singular nouns. The shortening is not gender-specific — it is a vowel deletion that happens in front of any singular noun, regardless of gender. The plural is always grandes, never shortened.
Una gran amiga me hizo un gran favor.
A great friend did me a big favour.
Las grandes catedrales españolas son románicas o góticas.
The great Spanish cathedrals are Romanesque or Gothic.
Note that gran before a noun usually has the figurative meaning "great, impressive," while grande after the noun usually has the literal meaning "big in size." Un gran hombre is a great man (impressive); un hombre grande is a big man (large in stature). See meaning change by position for the full set of position-dependent meaning shifts.
Other apocopation patterns
The apocopation rule applies only before the noun. After the noun, the full form returns: un amigo bueno, el día primero. The shortening is only for masculine singular (with the exception of gran). Before a masculine plural, no shortening: buenos amigos, primeros días. Before any feminine noun (except gran in the singular), no shortening: una buena amiga, la primera vez, las primeras horas.
Agreement across long distances
Adjectives stay locked to their noun even when separated by intervening words. The agreement does not weaken with distance.
La casa que compraron mis padres en Asturias es preciosa.
The house my parents bought in Asturias is gorgeous.
Las decisiones que tomaron los gobiernos europeos durante la crisis financiera fueron criticadas en toda la prensa.
The decisions European governments took during the financial crisis were criticised in the entire press.
In the first sentence, preciosa sits ten words away from casa but still agrees feminine singular. In the second, criticadas agrees with decisiones across an entire relative clause. The agreement target is the noun the adjective semantically describes, no matter where it is.
Predicative position: with ser, estar, parecer
Adjectives used after a copular verb (ser, estar, parecer, resultar, quedar) agree with the subject of the copula. This is the same rule as attributive agreement — the noun is still the trigger — but the adjective is now physically separated from the noun by the verb.
Mis hermanas están contentas con la nota del examen.
My sisters are happy with the exam grade.
El proyecto parece interesante, pero las condiciones no son tan claras.
The project seems interesting, but the conditions aren't as clear.
The trigger for contentas is hermanas; the trigger for interesante is proyecto; the trigger for claras is condiciones. Each adjective looks back to its subject noun and takes the matching form.
Collective nouns: singular noun, singular agreement
Collective nouns like gente (people), familia (family), equipo (team), grupo (group), mayoría (majority), minoría (minority) are grammatically singular in Spanish, even when they refer to multiple individuals. The adjective agrees singular with them.
La gente española es muy abierta y simpática.
Spanish people are very open and friendly.
La mayoría de los estudiantes está cansada después del examen.
The majority of students are tired after the exam.
Be careful here: a learner translating from English will be tempted to make gente plural to match the English "people." It is singular: la gente es, never la gente son. The agreement on the adjective follows the same singular logic.
There is a subtle exception with la mayoría / minoría / parte de + plural noun: in colloquial peninsular Spanish, agreement sometimes shifts to the plural of the embedded noun (la mayoría de los estudiantes están cansados). This is widely accepted in speech and informal writing, less so in editorial prose. The strict rule is "agree with mayoría"; actual practice is more flexible.
Apocopation interacts with agreement
When you combine pre-nominal apocopation with one of the agreement rules above, the apocopation applies only to the masculine singular position. The rest of the agreement chain is normal.
Es un buen estudiante y una buena amiga.
He's a good student and a good friend (the friend being female).
El primer chico y la primera chica de la clase suben juntos al escenario.
The first boy and first girl of the class go up on stage together.
Algún día y alguna noche tendremos que hablar de esto.
Some day and some night we'll have to talk about this.
Buen, primer, algún keep the apocopated form for the masculine singular and the full form (buena, primera, alguna) for the feminine singular. Plural forms — buenos, primeros, algunos, ningunos — never apocopate.
Compared with English
English adjectives are invariable; agreement is alien to the language. Three things English speakers most often get wrong:
- They forget number agreement on two-form adjectives. Las casas son grandes, not grande — Spanish marks the plural even when there is no gender to mark.
- They match the nearer noun instead of the resolved gender. El padre y la madre cansada is wrong; it has to be cansados (mixed gender → masculine plural).
- They forget that adjectives across long distances still agree. La casa que compré es bonito fails because bonito is masculine but casa is feminine, even though casa is far back in the sentence.
Common Mistakes
❌ Mi hermano y mi hermana son altas.
Mixed-gender plural defaults to masculine plural, not feminine.
✅ Mi hermano y mi hermana son altos.
My brother and my sister are tall.
❌ Una falda y una camisa nuevos.
Both nouns are feminine, so the resolved plural is feminine plural — *nuevas*, not *nuevos*.
✅ Una falda y una camisa nuevas.
A new skirt and a new shirt.
❌ Es un bueno amigo desde hace años.
*Bueno* apocopates to *buen* before a masculine singular noun.
✅ Es un buen amigo desde hace años.
He's been a good friend for years.
❌ Una gran problema con el coche.
*Gran* shortens before any singular noun, but *problema* is masculine — and even so the issue is the noun's gender; the apocopation here is correct but *un*/*una* must match. The right form is *un gran problema*.
✅ Un gran problema con el coche.
A big problem with the car.
❌ La gente española son muy abiertos.
*Gente* is grammatically singular feminine — singular agreement, feminine adjective.
✅ La gente española es muy abierta.
Spanish people are very open.
❌ Las decisiones tomadas por el gobierno fue criticada.
The subject is *las decisiones* (feminine plural) — the verb and adjective both have to be plural and feminine.
✅ Las decisiones tomadas por el gobierno fueron criticadas.
The decisions taken by the government were criticised.
Key Takeaways
- The default agreement rule is noun gender + noun number → adjective form, regardless of distance from the noun.
- Mixed-gender groups take the masculine plural — both for collective nouns (los padres) and for coordinated subjects (el padre y la madre cansados).
- One adjective modifying coordinated nouns is always plural, with the gender resolved by the same masculine-default rule.
- Two adjectives modifying one noun each agree independently in gender and number with that noun.
- Apocopation (buen, mal, primer, tercer, un, algún, ningún) applies only before a masculine singular noun. Grande → gran applies before any singular noun.
- Predicative adjectives (after ser, estar, parecer) agree with the subject of the copula.
- Collective nouns (gente, familia, mayoría) are grammatically singular — singular adjective agreement even when the meaning is plural.
- Agreement does not weaken with distance; an adjective at the end of a long sentence still locks to its noun.
Now practice Spanish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
- Adjetivos: visión generalA1 — Spanish adjectives agree with their noun in gender and number, and usually come after the noun. An introduction to the four-form, two-form, and invariable patterns, the basics of plural formation, and the meaning-shift you get from pre-nominal placement.
- Adjetivos de cuatro formas: -o, -a, -os, -asA1 — Most Spanish adjectives have four distinct forms — masculine and feminine, singular and plural. Master the -o/-a/-os/-as pattern and you've solved the agreement problem for the majority of the adjectives you'll meet.
- Adjetivos de dos formas: invariables en géneroA1 — A large class of Spanish adjectives has only two forms — singular and plural — without distinguishing masculine and feminine. The endings -e, -ista, -ble, and most consonants put an adjective in this group.
- Adjetivos de nacionalidadA1 — Nationality adjectives have their own quirky rules — consonant-ending ones add -a in the feminine, accents drop and reappear, and the same word serves as the adjective, the noun for the person, and often the name of the language.
- Apócope: formas cortas de los adjetivos (buen, mal, gran, primer, san)A2 — A handful of common adjectives drop their final letters when they sit before certain nouns. Bueno → buen, malo → mal, grande → gran, primero → primer, alguno → algún, santo → san — the rules for when, why, and which gender.
- Género de los sustantivos: visión generalA1 — Every Spanish noun is masculine or feminine — gender drives the article, the adjective, and the pronoun. An introduction for English speakers who have never met grammatical gender before.