Kilo Lingo
Part of Chapter 2

CEFR A1

2 min read

Test yourself (24 questions)

Matching Este and Ese to Gender and Number

Every demonstrative in Spanish is a two-part decision. Distance picks the word: for things near you the speaker, for things near the person you are talking to. Then the noun picks the form, because the demonstrative must agree with it in gender and number. That second step is what this page drills.

The table

DistanceMasc sgFem sgMasc plFem pl
Near me
Near you

A third row exists - / / / , for things far from both of you - and it follows exactly the same agreement logic. The main demonstratives article covers it in full; here we drill the two rows that carry everyday speech.

The agreement rule

Match the noun's gender, then its number. Nothing else.

  • - hombre is masculine singular, so este
  • - casa is feminine singular, so esta
  • - años is masculine plural, so estos
  • - cosas is feminine plural, so estas

The ese row behaves identically: , , , .

The trap: gender is not the ending

The agreement is with the noun's gender, which usually - but not always - shows in its ending. The classic ambush is : it ends in -a but is masculine (el día), so it is and , never esta día. Meanwhile and give you no vowel clue at all, and both are feminine: , . When you drill the exercises below, you are really drilling two things at once - the four-form pattern and the genders of the nouns themselves.

How to use the drills

Work down each exercise saying the full phrase aloud, not just the answer: "este hombre", "esta casa". The point is to make agreement a reflex, so the wrong combination starts to sound wrong before you can explain why. Exercise 1 drills the este row, exercise 2 the ese row, and exercise 3 mixes both, with a distance cue in brackets doing the job that pointing does in real life.

See also

  • The demonstratives article for the full three-way system, aquel, and the neuter forms esto, eso and aquello.
  • Noun gender for why día is masculine and how to predict the rest.
  • Noun plurals for the -s and -es rules the plural demonstratives ride along with.

Practise: test yourself

Pick the right one

0/8

Pick the form of este that agrees with the noun in gender and number.

  1. hombre

  2. casa

  3. años

  4. cosas

  5. día

  6. vez

  7. señores

  8. verdad

Pick the right one

0/8

Same drill, one step further away. Pick the form of ese that agrees with the noun.

  1. señor

  2. cosa

  3. días

  4. casas

  5. tiempo

  6. verdad

  7. hombres

  8. veces

Pick the right one

0/8

Now both rows at once. The bracket tells you the distance; the noun tells you the rest.

  1. casa (near me)

  2. señor (near you)

  3. cosas (near me)

  4. años (near you)

  5. hombre (near me)

  6. verdad (near you)

  7. días (near me)

  8. casas (near you)

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Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between este and ese?
Distance from the speaker. Este means this - the thing near me: este hombre is the man next to me. Ese means that - the thing near you, or the thing we were just talking about: ese hombre is the man over by you. Both then agree with the noun in gender and number, so each has four forms. There is a third word, aquel, for things far from both people, but este and ese carry almost all of everyday speech.
Is it este or esta?
It depends entirely on the noun's gender. Este goes with masculine nouns (este hombre, este año, este tiempo) and esta with feminine nouns (esta casa, esta cosa, esta verdad). The catch is that you must know the noun's gender rather than guess from the ending: día ends in -a but is masculine, so it is este día. If the noun is plural, switch to estos or estas.
Why is it este día and not esta día?
Because día is masculine - el día - despite ending in -a. Demonstratives agree with the noun's actual gender, not with its final letter. A small group of common masculine -a nouns (día, problema, tema) trips learners constantly, and día sits inside the top 100 words of the language, so it is worth hard-wiring este día early.
Does aquel still get used in modern Spanish?
Yes, though less than textbooks imply. Aquel covers things far from both speaker and listener, and it is the natural choice for the distant past: aquellos años, those years long ago. In quick everyday speech ese often absorbs its territory, but aquel is alive and well in narration, nostalgia and pointed contrast. Its four forms follow the same agreement rule: aquel, aquella, aquellos, aquellas.