The first thing you may notice is that we do NOT capitalize nationalities in Spanish the way we do in English:
English |
Spanish |
| Mauricio is Cuban. | Mauricio es cubano. |
Nationalities are adjectives and so they follow the same rules of Adjective Agreement.
- Nationalities which end in "o" in the masculine singular form
change to "a" endings in the feminine form, and add an "s" in the plural forms.
Masculine |
Feminine |
| Dan es filipino | Marilú es filipina |
| Ellos son filipinos | Marilú y su mamá son filipinas. |
- Nationalities which end in consonants:
add an "a" for the feminine form, add "es" to pluralize the masculine form, and add "s" to pluralize the feminine form.
Masculine |
Feminine |
| Brian es portugués | Teresa es portuguesa |
| Los estudiantes son portugueses. | Las profesoras son portuguesas |
- Nationalities
ending in "e"
have only two forms, a singular and a plural:
Singular |
Plural |
| Jim es estadounidense. | Jim y Christopher son estadounidenses. |
| Lora es estadounidense. | Lora y Jessica son estadounidenses. |
Note: Words which have an accent on the final syllable in the masculine singular drop the accent when made feminine or plural.
This is because once we add the "a" or the plural "es/as", the stress is on the second-to-last syllable which is normal for words ending with S or a vowel. The accent mark is no longer necessary.
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review Accents & Pronunciation.