Questions & Answers about Mi laptop es nueva.
Why is it nueva (feminine) when laptop is an English word?
Even though laptop comes from English, it is treated as a feminine noun in most of Latin America (la laptop). This is likely because the standard Spanish word for computer (la computadora) is feminine. Since the noun is feminine, the adjective must match it, becoming nueva.
Why do we use es instead of está? Doesn't a laptop eventually stop being new?
It's a common mix-up! It is tempting to think of 'newness' as a temporary state that changes over time, which might make you want to use está. However, in Spanish, age and newness are considered defining characteristics of an item's identity. Because we are describing a core trait of the object, we always use the verb ser (es).
Is laptop the most common way to say this in Latin America?
Yes, la laptop is extremely common in everyday Latin American Spanish. You will also hear la computadora portátil (or just la portátil), which is the traditional Spanish term, but laptop is perfectly natural and widely understood in daily conversation.