When learning a new language, like Spanish, it’s good to know the basic parts of speech that help you make sense of things like word order (syntax) and verb conjugations (morphology). Some grammar concepts, like parts of speech, can easily transfer over from other languages to Spanish. So, you don’t need to become a grammar expert to learn basic Spanish. But knowing these fundamental building blocks will prepare you to start reading and listening to Spanish with confidence.
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What are the parts of speech in Spanish?
Think of Spanish language parts of speech like the blocks that kids use to build a house. They start with a foundation and then place block after block next to one another until they make a row. This is similar to how you construct a sentence with the different parts of speech. You have the first block (or part) of speech, the second, and so forth—but some of these parts of speech in Spanish are interchangeable and don’t follow the rules that the same parts of speech in English do.
Before we get into the nitty gritty of each part of speech in the Spanish language, we’ll give you an example that serves as an overview. Look at this sentence, which uses all of the Spanish parts of speech (the English translation is below it):
- ¡Ay! El perro negro come el pollo rápidamente y lo devora en la cocina.
- Oh! The black dog quickly eats the chicken and devours it in the kitchen.
You’ll notice that the word order is slightly different from Spanish to English. Below is the first part of the sentence in building block form, with each Spanish part of speech in its own box.
| Ay | el | perro | negro | come | el | pollo | rápidamente |
See how the sentence is like a row of building blocks? Sometimes, these blocks can be more easily rearranged in Spanish than in English, and we’ll talk about that later.
Parts of speech in Spanish chart
Using the original example sentence above, here’s a handy chart that gives an overview of the parts of speech in Spanish.
| Part of speech | English translation | Use | Spanish example | English translation |
| sustantivos | nouns | indicate a person, place, or thing | perro | dog |
| verbos | verbs | show the action of a sentence | come | eats |
| preposiciones | prepositions | indicate the location or duration of something or someone | en | on |
| adjetivos | adjectives | describe a noun | negro | black |
| adverbios | adverbs | describe a verb | rápidamente | quickly |
| pronombres | pronouns | stand in for a nouns | lo | it |
| conjunciones | conjunctions | join two phrases or items | y | and |
| artículos | articles | clarify the nature of a noun | ella | the (masculine)the (feminine) |
| interjecciones | interjections | expresses surprise | ay | oh |
Sustantivos (nouns)
Many of us remember the “person, place, or thing” theme from elementary school, but nouns are a lot more than that.
They can function as the subject of a sentence—meaning the inanimate object or being doing the action:
- La niña juega todo el día. = The girl plays all day long.
They can also act as the object of a verb, which means they are the one receiving the action. Here, the post receives the impact of the car:
- El carro pegó al poste. = The car hit the post.
Similarly, they can be the object of a preposition:
- El abuelo se sentó en su silla favorita. = The grandfather sat in his favorite chair.
Nouns can also be a lot more conceptual or abstract:
- La belleza está en el ojo del observador. = Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Note: Spanish is a gendered language, which means nouns are considered masculine or feminine. These Spanish gender rules are important because noun genders also need to match their accompanying adjectives.
Verbos (verbs)
You probably already have an idea of how verbs commonly follow nouns from the examples above. However, talking about verbs being action words can be a little misleading.
Sometimes there is a very active verb:
- El volcán explotó. = The volcano erupted.
Yet, sometimes the verb is more about existence:
- Hay un volcán en Puebla, México. = There is a volcano in Puebla, Mexico.
A verb can also have a more submissive sense:
- Paola recibió una llamada. = Paola got a phone call.
Here, Paola is not exactly doing the action. Rather, she is on the receiving end of an action initiated by someone else. Still, Paola is the subject of the verb.
Spanish is not as strict as English when it comes to where the verb goes, thus the sentence from above can also be expressed like this:
- Recibió una llamada Paola. = Paola got a phone call.
Verbs get conjugated in unique ways in Spanish, with each verb form having a special ending depending on who is speaking or doing the action. A good place to start is by learning the most common Spanish verbs and their conjugations.
Preposiciones (prepositions)
Prepositions help us know where a noun is located, usually in a physical way, but they can also help us talk about the duration of things like historical periods. In other words, Spanish prepositions help us talk about space and time in reference to a noun. Here’s an example:
- El conejo está dentro de la caja. = The rabbit is inside the box.
Prepositions can also be used metaphorically:
- Su mente está en las nubes. = His head is in the clouds.
As we mentioned, prepositions can be used to talk about time:
- Durante la guerra, muchas personas quedaron sin casa. = During the war, many people were left homeless.
Adjetivos (adjectives)
Adjectives describe or modify nouns by making their nature clearer. Most adjectives in Spanish are placed after the noun they describe, and they should match that noun in gender and number.
- un libro aburrido = a boring book
- unos libros aburridos = some boring books
See how the plural form of a masculine noun (usually ending in “o”) has the “s” added to the noun and the adjective?
With a few exceptions, such as colors, it’s possible to place adjectives before the noun for emphasis:
- la bella casa = the beautiful house
- las bellas casas = the beautiful houses
Our list of 100+ adjectives and how to use them gives you more details about adjectives.
Adverbios (adverbs)
Just as adjectives modify nouns, adverbs modify verbs. They tell the reader or listener more details about the action of the sentence.
- La tortuga cruza la calle lentamente. = The turtle crosses the street slowly.
The most common adjectives in Spanish often end in “-mente,” the equivalent of “-ly” in English, but not all of them do! An example is adverbs of frequency like siempre (always) and nunca (never).
Pronombres (pronouns)
We use pronouns all the time in English as a substitute for names or nouns. In Spanish, they’re optional when they serve as the subject of a sentence, but there are nine types of pronouns, most of which aren’t optional. It’s important to learn the subject pronouns in Spanish because they serve as the basis for learning the verb conjugations.
- (Tú) lees muy bien. = You read very well.
The subject pronoun is optional, but because each verb gets conjugated distinctly for what is called “point of view” (first person, second person, third person), we can understand the sentence even without the subject pronoun in Spanish. In this way, we can sometimes remove one of the building blocks of our sentence in Spanish, but this is not recommended if you’re building a house!
Many of the other types of pronouns are used to indicate objects in a sentence. Don’t be fooled: In grammar, objects are not necessarily things. Rather, they are the objects receiving the action.
- Renata besó a Alfonso. = Renata kissed Alfonso.
In this example, Alfonso is on the receiving end of the verb, and he functions as the object of the sentence.
Conjunciones (conjunctions)
Conjunctions join two phrases or items in a sentence. There are three basic types of Spanish conjunctions: coordinating, correlative, and subordinating.
Coordinating conjunctions generally unite small items or phrases of a sentence:
- Me gustan las peras y las manzanas. = I like pears and apples.
Correlative conjunctions work in pairs:
- No comen trigo ni carne. = They eat neither wheat nor meat.
Subordinating conjunctions are used for dependent clauses, meaning full phrases that depend on the other part of the sentence to make sense:
- Cuando te pica un zancudo, te da comezón. = When a mosquito bites you, it makes you itch.
Artículos (articles)
As in English, there are definite articles like el (the) that describe a known thing or person such as el monumento de la ciudad (the city monument). There are also articles like un (a) that describe an unknown thing or person such as un huracán (a hurricane). When an indefinite article is plural in Spanish—unos jitomates—it’s translated as “some tomatoes.”
When it comes to definite and indefinite Spanish articles, they need to match the nouns they accompany in number and gender. Here is a useful chart to help remember them:
| Gender/Number | Definite artículos | Indefinite artículos |
| masculine singular | el | un |
| feminine plural | la | una |
| masculine plural | los | unos |
| feminine plural | las | unas |
Interjecciones (interjections)
Interjections and exclamations are just that: They quickly and briefly interject or exclaim something in a sentence. As in English, we often use Spanish interjections to express surprise with words like vaya (well, wow), but they can also be used to show a sudden noise. For example, pum, which might be translated as “boom.”
As you can see, some of these words don’t translate directly or they have dual meanings, another reason why studying with a program and not just a dictionary is important. The subtleties of language are not always obvious from a simple internet search. In business and public situations, it’s necessary to understand that some interjections are casual and others are more acceptable in formal situations. One way to understand these differences is with Rosetta Stone’s Dynamic Immersion method, which helps you learn a language in context.
Key takeaways for parts of speech in Spanish
There’s a lot of crossover between how the parts of speech work in English and Spanish. Here are a few things to remember about the parts of speech in Spanish:
- Parts of speech are the building blocks of sentence-making and communication in Spanish.
- Spanish has nine basic parts of speech: sustantivos, verbos, preposiciones, adjetivos, pronombres, adverbios, conjunciones, artículos, and interjecciones.
- Each part of speech in Spanish serves a specific purpose and may be used in different places within a sentence.
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