Describing hair with the verb to Have
To describe a person’s hair, we can also say so, using as in English, the verb To Have. Let’s see it:
¿CÓMO ES TU MADRE?
HOW IS YOUR MOM?
→ MY MOM HAS BLACK HAIR.
♣ Even though we have already seen a while ago the verb TENER (To Have), when forming this sentence in Spanish there are few things that must be taught. Let’s try again:
(First of all we are going to tell you what hair means in Spanish )
Hair ⇒ Pelo
MI MADRE TIENE EL PELO NEGRO
MY MOM HAS THE HAIR BLACK
◊ Note:
- PELO is a masculine/singular noun so the article EL goes before the noun.
- You might wonder why there is an article? As we have seen in previous blogs, whenever we find a noun, we will always without exemption use a determinant for that noun (a/an, the, my…and some other words that are not explained yet)
- You also might ask, why PELO is a singular noun, if the hair is basically and normally a lot. Because we consider hair as a one big structure and using the article THE, we think about all of it, like a big one unit.
- If instead using EL PELO we say UN PELO, this expression refers to only 1 hair. In other words, one unit of all your hair.
- The adjective NEGRO, Why is it masculine if we are talking about your mom? To what or to whom are we giving the adjective NEGRO? To your mom or to the hair? That’s the answer. NEGRO refers to the hair, not to your mom, so, the adjective will come with the same gender of the thing that it is referring to. Of course this also applies for the article THE. EL PELO NEGRO
- This is. very important. Adjectives in Spanish go after the noun! Not before! Further on, when your Spanish is quite strong, we will see that eventually the adjective can also go before, but, from now on until we have a strong Spanish we will always use the adjectives after the noun. Let’s see few examples:
- BLACK HAIR ⇒ PELO NEGRO
- FUNNY BROTHER ⇒ HERMANO DIVERTIDO
- BLOND HAIR ⇒ PELO RUBIO
After all:
¿CÓMO ES TU MADRE?
HOW IS YOUR MOM?
-
MI MADRE TIENE EL PELO NEGRO
MY MOM HAS THE HAIR BLACK
-
MI MADRE TIENE EL PELO RUBIO
MY MOM HAS THE HAIR BLOND
-
MI MADRE TIENE EL PELO MORENO
MY MOM HAS THE HAIR BRUNET
4. And so on…following the same structure.
◊ As there is a lot of information in this blog, we are going to split it into 2 parts. Basically we just have to see adjectives of long/short, curly/straight…so on…but we are going to see all these in the next section.
Shape of hair in Spanish
As we said in the previous section, we are just going to see adjectives to complete the description of a person’s hair with the verb TENER. Let’s see them:
|
INGLÉS |
MASCULINO |
FEMENINO |
|
CURLY |
RIZADO |
RIZADA |
|
STRAIGHT |
LISO |
LISA |
|
SHORT |
CORTO |
CORTA |
|
LONG |
LARGO |
LARGA |
♣ Note:
- LISO refers to Straight hair, but out of the hair description, means SMOOTH
We are ready to give a clear description of your mom’s hair:
¿CÓMO ES TU MADRE?
HOW IS YOUR MOM?
MI MADRE TIENE EL PELO NEGRO, LISO Y LARGO
MY MOM HAS THE HAIR BLACK, STRAIGHT AND LONG
◊ Note that as we have seen previously, NEGRO as well as LISO and LARGO, refer to PELO, so they are all singular and masculine as PELO is a masculine/singular noun.
Let’s see it again:
¿CÓMO ES TU MADRE?
HOW IS YOUR MOM?
MI MADRE TIENE EL PELO RUBIO, CORTO Y RIZADO
MY MOM HAS THE HAIR BLOND, SHORT AND CURLY
◊ Of course, as in English you can’t use those adjectives CORTO/LARGO, RIZADO/LISO with the verb SER (To be)… She is Long Hair?…NO, NO, NO! So, those adjectives will be only used with the verb TENER (To have).
Imagine that your mom is blond has a short and curly hair:
¿CÓMO ES TU MADRE?
HOW IS YOUR MOM?
MI MADRE ES RUBIA Y →
MY MOM IS BLOND AND →
◊ Connected
→ TIENE EL PELO LISO Y LARGO
→ HAS THE HAIR STRAIGHT AND LONG
Now together:
-
MI MADRE ES RUBIA Y TIENE EL PELO LISO Y LARGO
-
MY MOM IS BLOND AND HAS THE HAIR STRAIGHT AND LONG
Describing eyes with the verb to Have in Spanish
To finish a person’s physical description, we are going to check the eyes. It is also very normal to describe them when we refer to people in physical terms.
As the hair with verb tener, we have to follow the same pattern. First let’s check the vocabulary that is gonna be needed:
→ Noun:
|
EYES |
OJOS |
→ Adjectives:
|
INGLÉS |
MASCULINO |
FEMENINO |
|
BIG |
GRANDE |
GRANDE |
|
SMALL |
PEQUEÑO |
PEQUEÑA |
|
BROWN |
MARRÓN |
MARRÓN |
|
BLACK |
NEGRO |
NEGRA |
|
BLUE |
AZUL |
AZUL |
|
GREEN |
VERDE |
VERDE |
♣ Note:
- MARRÓN has the same gender for masculine/feminine, even though it does not finish with the vowel E as the rule taught. It is gonna be an exception.
- BLUE has the same gender for masculine/feminine, even though it does not finish with the vowel E as the rule taught. It is gonna be an exception.
We are ready then to describe your mom’s eyes:
¿CÓMO ES TU MADRE?
HOW IS YOUR MOM?
MI MADRE TIENE LOS OJOS NEGROS Y GRANDES
MY MOM HAS THE EYES BLACK AND BIG
◊ Again we have many things that have to be taught in this sentence:
- OJOS is a masculine plural noun, so, the article LOS goes before the noun.
- You might wonder why there is an article? As we have seen in previous section, whenever we find a noun, we will always without exemption use a determinant for that noun (a/an, the, my…and some other words that are not explained yet)
- The adjectives NEGROS and GRANDES. Why are they masculine and plural if we are talking about your mom? To what or to whom are we giving the adjective NEGROS and GRANDES? To your mom or to the eyes? That’s the answer. NEGROS and Grandes refers to the eyes, not to your mom, so, the adjective will come with the same gender of the thing that it is referring to. Of course this also applies for the article THE. LOS OJOS NEGROS Y GRANDES
- This is very important. Adjectives in Spanish go after the noun! Not before! Further on, when your Spanish is quite strong, we will see that eventually the adjective can also go before, but, from now on until we have a strong Spanish, we will always use the adjectives after the noun.
- The adjective CASTAÑO (Chestnut) that we have seen before for hair, can’t be used for eyes.
- The adjective MORENO (Brunette) that we have seen before for hair, can’t be used for eyes but it can be used to describe a tanned person.
After all:
¿CÓMO ES TU MADRE?
HOW IS YOUR MOM?
MI MADRE TIENE LOS OJOS NEGROS
MY MOM HAS THE EYES BLACK
MI MADRE TIENE LOS OJOS PEQUEÑOS
MY MOM HAS THE EYES SMALL
MI MADRE TIENE LOS OJOS VERDES Y GRANDES
MY MOM HAS THE EYES GREEN AND BIG
…And so on…following the same structure.
