Where are you from in Spanish

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Introduction to Verbo Ser (To Be permanent)

The first step in today’s blog will take us to see the verb To Be in Spanish. If you do not know it yet, in Spanish, unlike English, we have two different verbs TO BE; the use of each of them will depend on what we are trying to express:

Basically, SER (To Be) will be be used when our communication refers to a permanent expression and ESTAR (To Be) refers to a temporary expression.

→ Remember: SER IS THE PERMANENT VERB TO BE IN SPANISH. 


Let’s see the 2 small examples that we should already know:

¿Cuál  es  tu   nombre? 

Which is  your name?

Mi nombre es Sarah

My name      is  Sarah

◊ Do you think that  the identification of your name is a permanent thing or a temporary thing? 

(eventually people can change it but is a very rare thing)

→ So, we would say that is a permanent  expression  which will take us to SER.


¿Cómo estás?     

How     are (you)?

 Yo estoy cansado

 I     am    tired

◊ Do you  think that the mental/physic state in a certain moment is a permanent or a temporary thing?

Is it to be tired, a permanent or a temporary state? It changes clearly.

→ So we would say that is a temporary expression which will take us to ESTAR


People are really curious about the way we look, and of course our country and our faces are connected to it.

So, we’d say……where are you from?

Do you think that  the nationality of a person is a permanent thing or a temporary thing? 

(eventually people can change as the name  but is a very weird thing)

→ So we would say that is a permanent  expression  which will take us to SER

Nationalities are a clear permanent thing.

¿DE DÓNDE ERES?

From where  are (you)? 

♠ The order of the words is different than English as we can see:

→WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

→ The exact question in English is:

→  FROM WHERE ARE YOU? 


The first step to answer this question is seeing the conjugation of the verb SER. Let’s see:

SER IS THE VERB TO BE PERMANENT IN  SPANISH

PERSONAL PRONOUN

PRONOMBRE PERSONAL

TO BE

ESTAR

I

YO

AM

SOY

YOU

ARE

ERES

YOU (FORMAL)

USTED

ARE

ES

HE

ÉL

IS

ES

SHE

ELLA

IS

ES

WE

NOSOTROS

ARE

SOMOS

YOU(ALL)

VOSOTROS

ARE

SOIS

YOU (ALL FORMAL)

USTEDES

ARE

SON

THEY (MASCULINE)

FOR GUYS

ELLOS

ARE

SON

THEY 

(FEMININE)

FOR GIRLS

ELLAS

ARE

SON

Therefore:

¿DE DÓNDE ERES?

From where are (you)? 

YO SOY DE ESPAÑA

 I    AM FROM SPAIN

YO  SOY ESPAÑOL

I       AM   SPANISH


◊ Of course, we do need vocabulary for countries and nationalities. We will see it in the next section.

Just a small introduction in vocabulary about countries:

COUNTRY

PAÍS

CHINA

CHINA

JAPAN

JAPÓN

UNITED STATES

ESTADOS UNIDOS

ENGLAND

INGLATERRA

GERMANY

ALEMANIA

INDIA

INDIA

SPAIN

ESPAÑA

SOUTH KOREA

COREA DEL SUR

RUSSIA

RUSIA

FRANCE

FRANCIA

PHILIPPINES 

FILIPINAS

MALAYSIA

MALASIA

Are you able to tell me which country you are from already? We bet you are!! Remember:

¿DE DÓNDE ERES?

From where are (you)? 

YO SOY DE ESPAÑA

 I    AM FROM SPAIN

YO  SOY ESPAÑOL

I       AM   SPANISH

Territories and citizenship in Spanish

In the previous section, we saw the names of several countries around the world, but, not the nationality of them. Just a small introduction to Spanish ⇔ Español. 

In specific terms:

País (Country)⇒  España (Spain)

Nacionalidad (Nationality)⇒ Español (Spanish)


Here it comes, one of the most annoying things of the Spanish language. The gender of the words (masculine and feminine words). Adjectives, Nouns, Determinants…have a gender (masculine-feminine). We do need a single post to explain the gender but before we go deeper, remember:

♠ Nouns, Adjectives…have a feminine or a masculine gender. 

The  gender of a noun remains itself without any change. 

→ Per example: España ⇒ Spain.   España as a noun, does have a gender but it will not change, of course. Then, where does the change come from??

♣ In Nationality terms,  knowing that the nationality word (Spanish) is an adjective , girls will have a word with a feminine gender and boys will have a masculine one.

PAÍS (COUNTRY)

HOMBRE (MAN)

MUJER (WOMAN)

ESPAÑA

ESPAÑOL ⇔ SPANISH

?

CHINA

CHINO ⇔ CHINESE

?

JAPÓN

JAPONÉS ⇔ JAPANESE

?

ESTADOS UNIDOS

ESTADOUNIDENSE ⇔ AMERICAN

?

INGLATERRA 

INGLÉS ⇔ ENGLISH

?

ALEMANIA

ALEMÁN ⇔ GERMAN

?

FRANCIA

FRANCÉS ⇔ FRENCH

?

ARGENTINA

ARGENTINO ⇔ARGENTINIAN

?

COLOMBIA

COLOMBIANO ⇔ COLOMBIAN

?


So, we can use the table above:

→ FOR MEN (MASCULINE) :

¿DE DÓNDE ERES?

From where are (you)? 

YO SOY DE ESPAÑA

 I    AM FROM SPAIN

YO  SOY ESPAÑOL (for men)

I       AM   SPANISH


→ FOR WOMEN (FEMININE):

¿DE DÓNDE ERES?

From where are (you)? 

YO SOY DE ESPAÑA

 I    AM FROM SPAIN

HERE IT COMES THE GENDER CHANGE:

I     AM      SPANISH

YO SOY       ??? (for women)


In the following section, we will explain the gender of a word and the change from a masculine into a feminine word. Do not worry, it is not as hard as it looks, basically it is just annoying!

express nationality in Spanish

Masculine and Feminine nationalities in Spanish

As we said previously, many Spanish words (nouns, adjectives, articles…) have a gender, being one of the most annoying things of our learning. Easy but extremely annoying. 

To recognize, with a naked eye, when we are reading, using or writing a feminine word, we will understand it afterwards at the end of this section. Everything will make more sense once we see the transformation of the gender from a Masculine Nationality into a feminine. 


We have seen countries and masculine (men) nationalities so far. To make the masculine nationality word into a feminine one, we have to know the men (masculine) nationality first:

PAÍS (COUNTRY)

HOMBRE (MAN)

MUJER (WOMAN)

ESPAÑA

ESPAÑOL

?

CHINA

CHINO

?

JAPÓN

JAPONÉS

?

ESTADOS UNIDOS

ESTADOUNIDENSE

?

INGLATERRA 

INGLÉS

?

ALEMANIA

ALEMÁN

?

FRANCIA

FRANCÉS

?

ARGENTINA

ARGENTINO

?

COLOMBIA

COLOMBIANO

?

AMÉRICA

AMERICANO

?


◊ THE GENDER

YO SOY ESPAÑOL     

I      AM   SPANISH       

(español is a masculine adjective, so only male would use it)


How would we turn ESPAÑOL into a feminine word?

  1. ADJECTIVES THAT ENDS WITH A CONSONANT  WE WILL TURN THEM FEMININE JUST ADDING AN A AT THE END       

ESPAÑOLADD AESPAÑOLA

→ Exemple:

¿DE DÓNDE ERES?

from where are you?

BOYS ⇒ YO SOY ESPAÑOL

                  I    AM  SPANISH

GIRLS ⇒ YO SOY ESPAÑOLA

                   I   AM   SPANISH


  1. ADJECTIVES THAT ENDS WITH A VOWEL, WE WILL TURN THEM FEMININE SWITCHING THE ENDING VOWEL I, O, U into A

CHINO ⇒ SWITCH I, O, U to A CHINA

→ Exemple:

¿DE DÓNDE ERES?

from where are you?

BOYS ⇒ YO SOY CHINO

                  I    AM  CHINESE

GIRLS ⇒ YO SOY CHINA

                   I   AM   CHINESE


  1.   ADJECTIVES THAT ENDS WITH A VOWEL E, WILL REMAIN THE SAME FOR GIRLS AND BOYS

ESTADOUNIDENSE (MEN) 

SAME

ESTADOUNIDENSE (WOMEN)

→ Exemple:

¿DE DÓNDE ERES?

from where are you?

BOYS ⇒ YO SOY ESTADOUNIDENSE

                  I    AM  AMERICAN

GIRLS ⇒ YO SOY ESTADOUNIDENSE

                   I   AM   AMERICAN


LET’S TURN THE MASCULINE NATIONALITIES INTO FEMININE NOW THEN:

PAÍS (COUNTRY)

HOMBRE (MAN)

MUJER (WOMAN)

ESPAÑA

ESPAÑOL (ENDING L)

(PLUS A)                     ESPAÑOLA

CHINA

CHINO (ENDING O)

(O into A)                            CHINA

China

JAPONÉS (ENDING S)

(PLUS A)                     JAPONESA

ESTADOS UNIDOS

ESTADOUNIDENSE (ENDING E)

(KEEPS E)     ESTADOUNIDENSE

INGLATERRA 

INGLÉS (ENDING S)

(PLUS A)                         INGLESA

ALEMANIA

ALEMÁN (ENDING N)

(PLUS A)                      ALEMANA  

FRANCIA

FRANCÉS (ENDING S)

(PLUS A)                     FRANCESA

ARGENTINA

ARGENTINO (ENDING O)

(O into A)                   ARGENTINA

COLOMBIA

COLOMBIANO  (ENDING O)

(O into A)                COLOMBIANA

AMERICA

AMERICANO (ENDING O)

(O into A)                  AMERICANA

◊ Note that when turning a word from masculine into feminine the accent mark rule changes, so, as we see above, many masculine words have an accent but the feminine do not. Example:

Masculine ⇒ INGLÉS (ACCENT MARK) 

Feminine ⇒ INGLESA (NO ACCENT MARK)


◊AGAIN:

¿DE DÓNDE ERES?

from where are you?

BOYSYO SOY ESPAÑOL

                  I    AM  SPANISH

GIRLSYO SOY ESPAÑOLA

                   I   AM   SPANISH


AS WE HAVE SAID IN THE BEGINNING OF THE LESSON WE WERE GOING TO BE ABLE TO SEE WHEN IS A FEMINE WORD WHEN USING, READING OR WRITING.

ARE YOU NOW¿?  WE BET YOU ARE.  

♥ THE WORDS IN SPANISH THAT END WITH THE VOWEL A BASICALLY ARE FEMININE AND THE REST ARE MASCULINE.

Feminine and masculine in Spanish

United States, America and American in Spanish

In this section we are going to see something curious that has happened to us along the years that we’ve travelled and worked around Spanish Speaking countries in America.


We have seen in the previous lessons the United States and its nationality. Remember:

País (Country) ⇒ Estados Unidos (United States)

Nacionalidad (Nationality) ⇒ Estadounidense (American)

→ Estadounidense ends with vowel E. Therefore, the gender keeps the same for men and women.

                                                                   Or

País (Country) ⇒ America (United States)

Nacionalidad (Nationality) ⇒ Americano/a (American)


So far everything is right. Then? 

→ We have had the opportunity of being in several countries in South and Central America and when we were referring to American people (people from United States) as American,  we saw that people was getting a little bit annoyed because we were using the word America to refer to United States and American to refer to people from United States. It happened few times, and the answer was always going in the same direction:

  • Hey! I am American too! And I Live in America too!! Just in the South of America.
  • Right!- Sorry -we’d say, and so we understood that when we are in Central and South America referring to the United States and their people as America or Americans is not completely right (they have a point in our eyes).

You might wonder if referring to American as a people from United States is right in those terms:

Well, checking the dictionary in English the Nationality of United States is, actually, the word American, there are no other words as we have in Spanish, so, it is right in English terms to refer to them as Americans but note that in many people eyes, America is the continent and American are the citizens of this continent.

Place ⇒ América

Nationality ⇒ Americano (men) – Americana (women)


  1. America refers to the continent. 
  2. United States of America refers to the country.
  3. American refers to the nationality of people from United States.
  4. American can refer to a citizen of the continent of America.

This is just a curious thing that actually it does not happen in Spanish because as we have seen:

País (Country) ⇒ Estados Unidos (United States)

Nacionalidad (Nationality) ⇒ Estadounidense (American)

A short Spanish introduction

chat between two persons in Spanish
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