Questions & Answers about Esas monedas viejas son muy caras.
Why use esas instead of estas here?
Esas means "those" (pointing to things a short distance away or near the person you are talking to), while estas means "these" (things right here next to you). Because the English sentence says "Those old coins," we use esas to match both the distance and the feminine plural noun monedas.
Why do we use son (from ser) rather than están (from estar) to talk about the price?
Why do almost all the words in this sentence end in "-as"?
Spanish requires adjectives and demonstrative words (like "this" or "those") to match the gender and number of the noun they describe. The subject of the sentence is monedas (coins), which is feminine and plural. Therefore, "those" becomes esas, "old" becomes viejas, and "expensive" becomes caras so they all match perfectly!
If I wanted to say they are "too expensive" instead of "very expensive", would the word for "too" also end in "-as"?