I can never remember which this to use in Spanish. Can someone clarify for me??? Este? Esta? Esto? Ese? Ack!
Este and esta (accents on the first syllable) are the pronouns and adjectives for “this,” and are used accordingly as their referent is of masculine or feminine gender. Este papel is “this paper”; esta tienda is “this store.” And each would stand alone as a pronoun when needed: “Este es mi papel.”
“Esto” is rare but useful; it’s the neuter-gender indefinite a “this” corresponding to the “it” in “it’s raining.” An example would be a couple of paragraphs describing someone’s reasoning, followed by “This led him to believe…” for which the proper word for “this” would be “esto.”
“Eso” and “esa” are the forms for “that” used for something in the near distance, particularly when contrasted with “este” and “esta.” “Este arbol es un pina, pero eso es un roble.” (“This tree here is a pine but that one there is an oak.”)
“Aquel/-la” is a more distant “that” – “Aquella playa esta en Cayo Seco.” (“That beach is on Dry Key.”) Eso/-a and aquel/-la are useful in discussing objects in the near and far distance. “Eso arbol es un pina, pero aquel es un roble”: “That tree over there, a short ways away, is a pine, but that other one, on beyond it, is an oak.”
Mil gracias!
In my head “eso” looks more like “this” (“this-o”???), and that’s why I always get them confyooz-ed.
English has an obsolete word that seems to mean the same thing as aquel(la): yon (or the closely related yonder). If you’ve ever heard it used, you might be able to judge when it’s appropriate: “I shall ride this horse through that forest to yon mountain.” I don’t know if you’d say “Yon beach is in France,” but I guess you could.
The Latin words from which este and esta are derived are iste and ista, which mean ‘this or that thing that you refer to’. (Latin also had a neuter form, istud, but Spanish doesn’t have a neutral gender.) The Classical Latin words for ‘this’ (hic, haec, hoc) and ‘that’ (ille, illa, illud) were not, for the most part, adopted in Romance languages. *Ille *and illa, however, did provide a very important word for the Romance languages: the definite articles, since Latin didn’t have articles. (Hence el from ille, la from illa.)
It might help if you can remember that este and esta are the ‘original’ forms and esa/eso is derived from it. If you know any other Romance languages, you can relate this sort of word to similar words in other languages. But don’t try to remember what Spanish pronouns mean by relating them to English words – those words are all very Germanic in their origin in English, and very Romance in their origin in Spanish.
I think Polycarp’s made some minor errors in regard to the forms (“eso árbol”? Ack!) I’m giving entire tables here to make the distinctions clearer.
**Adjective forms:**
masc neut fem
singular *este - esta*
plural *est**o**s - estas*
singular *ese - esa*
plural *es**o**s - esas*
singular *aquel - aquella*
plural *aquell**o**s - aquellas*
**Pronouns:**
masc neut fem
singular *éste esto ésta*
plural *ést**o**s - éstas*
singular *ése eso ésa*
plural *és**o**s - ésas*
singular *aquél aquello aquélla*
plural *aquéll**o**s - aquéllas*
There are three sets, and they correspond to the first, second, and third persons. So “Esta manzana” (this apple) refers to an apple I’m holding, or one near me that I’m indicating. “Esa manzana” would be one that my listener is eating, or holding, or near. “Aquella manzana” is one that’s far from both of us. English would use “that” in both of the last two cases.
Note that there are separate forms as adjectives and demonstratives. In English, we make no distinction: “I don’t like that!” (while pointing) and “I don’t like that car!” In Spanish, they add accent marks that don’t affect the pronunciation of the words to make a distinction in the writing system.
The neuter forms are never adjectives (since there are no neuter nouns in Spanish, there are no neuter forms of adjectives) but they are written without accents, although I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it both ways (it may be a stylistic choice, or perhaps just a very nitpicky bit of grammatical prescriptivism.)
If you want, you can use the dumb mnemonic tool I made up in eighth grade to remember which ones have an accent and which don’t: they get lonely, so if they don’t have a noun to hang out with, they drag an accent mark along. (The neuters are an exception here, though.)
The neuter forms only exist in the singular, so you run into the unexpected event that “este” pluralizes as “estos”. They often refer to situations - Polycarp’s example (“This led him to believe”) is a good one.
This paragraph was unclear.
The neuters only exist in the singular, which means that the masculine “este” unexpectedly pluralizes as “estos”, which is the ordinary masculine plural ending. The neuter forms often refer to situations (or words or sentences: “¡No me digas eso!” (“Don’t tell me that!”)
My mother (a Spanish teacher) taught me a little rhyme that works pretty well in helping me remember.
This and these have t’s (In spanish, that is).
Excalibre is of course correct. My many-year-old Spanish memory failed me; ese it is. I had never run into the parallel to grammatical person before; I was always taught that ese and aquel depended on degree of distance from the speaker.