the noun they modify. For most nouns that refer to persons, grammatical gender matches biological gender. Adjectives Spanish generally uses adjectives in a similar way to English and most other Indo-European languages. However, there are three key differences between English and Spanish adjectives. In Spanish, adjectives usually go after the noun they modify. The exception is when the writer/speaker is being slightly emphatic, or even poetic, about a particular quality of an object (rather than the mundane use of using the quality to specify which particular object they are referring to). could either mean that there are many red houses in the world but I wish to talk about the one that I happen to own, or that I have many houses but am referring to the red one. = My house, the red one. means that I am stressing how red my particular house is (probably the only house I have). = My house, which is obviously red. In Spanish, adjectives agree with what they refer to in terms of both number (singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine). For example, (cup) is feminine, so "the red cup" is , but (glass) is masculine, so "the red glass" is . In Spanish, it is perfectly normal to let an adjective stand in for a noun or pronoun—with (where people are involved) no implication of condescension or rudeness. For example, means "the tall ones" or "the tall men". means "the big one" or "the big man". Determiners Spanish uses determiners in a similar way to English. The main difference is that they inflect for both number (singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine). Common determiners include ("the"), ("a"), ("this"), ("much, a lot"), ("some"). Pronouns Spanish pronouns fall into the same broad categories as English pronouns do: personal, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, and possessive. The personal pronouns–those that vary in form according to whether they represent the first, second, or third grammatical person–include a variety of second-person forms that differ not only according to number (singular or plural), but also according to formality or the social relation between speakers. Additionally, these second-person forms vary according to geographical region. Because the form of a conjugated verb reflects the person and number of its subject, subject pronouns are usually omitted, except where they are felt to be needed for emphasis or disambiguation. Adverbs Spanish adverbs work much like their English counterparts, e.g. ("very"), ("a little"), ("far"), ("much, a lot"), ("almost"),