Learn Spanish (Latin America): Las amigas son jóvenes y felices.

Las amigas son jóvenes y felices.

The friends are young and happy.

Breakdown of Las amigas son jóvenes y felices.

Questions & Answers about Las amigas son jóvenes y felices.

Since amigas is feminine, why aren't the adjectives feminine (like jóvenas or felizas)?

Adjectives that end in a consonant (like joven or feliz) or the letter -e usually have the exact same form for both masculine and feminine words. You only need to make them plural to match the plural subject las amigas, which is why we use jóvenes and felices.

The singular word is feliz. Why is it spelled felices here?

In Spanish, whenever a word ends in the letter -z, you must change the -z to a -c before adding -es to make it plural. You will see this spelling rule with nouns too, like changing lápiz (pencil) to lápices.

Why does jóvenes have an accent mark when the singular word joven doesn't?

Adding -es adds an extra spoken syllable to the word. Without a written accent, the natural rules of Spanish pronunciation would force the stress to shift to the wrong place. We add the accent mark over the ó to lock the spoken stress on the exact same syllable it was on in the singular word.

Why do we use son (from ser) instead of están (from estar) for being happy?