Demonstrative Adjectives

Demonstrative adjectives are the words we use to point to specific things: "this," "that," "these," and "those." In English, we have two levels of distance (this/these for near, that/those for far). Spanish has three levels of distance, giving speakers a more precise way to indicate how close or far something is.

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The Three Levels of Distance

Distance	Masculine Sg.	Feminine Sg.	Masculine Pl.	Feminine Pl.	English
Near (speaker)	este	esta	estos	estas	this / these
Medium (listener)	ese	esa	esos	esas	that / those
Far (neither)	aquel	aquella	aquellos	aquellas	that / those (over there)

The Distance System Explained

Think of it as three concentric circles:

1. Este/esta (this) — near the speaker. The thing is close to me.
2. Ese/esa (that) — near the listener or at a medium distance. The thing is close to you, or not too far away.
3. Aquel/aquella (that over there) — far from both speaker and listener. The thing is way over there.