Question 1

Why use esas instead of estas here?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 2

Why do we use son (from ser) rather than están (from estar) to talk about the price?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, we use the verb ser to describe the defining characteristics, traits, or qualities of an object. Being "expensive" (cara) is treated as an inherent quality or classification of these particular old coins, so we use son.

Question 3

Why do almost all the words in this sentence end in "-as"?

Accepted Answer

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!

Question 4

If I wanted to say they are "too expensive" instead of "very expensive", would the word for "too" also end in "-as"?

Accepted Answer

No, it wouldn't! To say "too expensive", you would swap out muy for demasiado. Because demasiado is acting as an adverb here (modifying the adjective caras rather than a noun), it never changes its ending. You would just say: Esas monedas viejas son demasiado caras.

Esas monedas viejas son muy caras.

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