En resumen (the short version)
- Most personality adjectives follow a few simple ending patterns: generoso / generosa, amable for both, trabajador / trabajadora.
- Use un poco only with the not-so-nice words (un poco tacaño), and nada to say someone isn't like that at all (no es nada egoísta).
- Watch out for false friends: sensible means sensitive, and educado means polite.
✌🏼 ¡Hola aventurero!
Your best friend, your mum, and that one coworker who always "just has a quick question" at 5.59 pm. How would you describe them in Spanish? 😅
When someone asks ¿Cómo es? (What's he like? / What's she like?), you need personality words. Not just simpático and bueno, but the ones that actually say something.
So in this post we'll go through personality adjectives in Spanish: how their endings work, the nice ones, the not-so-nice ones, and how to soften them so you don't sound ruder than you mean to.
How the endings work
Teacher bit 🤓 In Spanish, the adjective changes to match the person. The good news is that there are only a few patterns:
| Ending | For him | For her | More like this |
|---|---|---|---|
| -o becomes -a | generoso | generosa | divertido / divertida, tímido / tímida |
| -e stays the same | alegre | alegre | amable, paciente, inteligente |
| -ista stays the same | optimista | optimista | egoísta, perfeccionista, detallista |
| -or adds -a | trabajador | trabajadora | encantador / encantadora |
| -ón becomes -ona | mandón | mandona | dormilón / dormilona |
For more than one person, add -s or -es: amables, trabajadores. And here's a sneaky one: mandón loses its accent in the plural, mandones. The word gets a syllable longer, so the stress falls in the right place without it.
When you write a new adjective in your notes, write both forms together, like trabajador / trabajadora. Then you'll never have to work out the ending in the middle of a sentence.
Words for the people you like
Here are the nice ones. These are the words you'll use for friends, family and that colleague who always brings biscuits 🍪
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| amable | kind |
| generoso / generosa | generous |
| divertido / divertida | fun |
| trabajador / trabajadora | hard-working |
| detallista | thoughtful (remembers the little things) |
| majo / maja | nice, easy to get on with |
| encantador / encantadora | charming |
| un cielo | a sweetheart, an angel |
Detallista is a lovely one, and very Spanish. It's for someone who remembers your birthday, brings you a little something from their trip, or notices you've had a haircut. Mi abuela es muy detallista.
And es un cielo (literally "he's a sky") is what people say about someone who's just a really lovely person. Tu madre es un cielo.
Words for the not-so-nice side
Now the fun part. Everyone has ese compañero (that colleague), so you'll need these too:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| tacaño / tacaña | stingy |
| mandón / mandona | bossy |
| vago / vaga | lazy |
| creído / creída | full of themselves |
| maleducado / maleducada | rude |
| cotilla | nosy, a gossip |
| quejica | a moaner |
| pelota | a suck-up (to the boss) |
The last three are very common in Spain, and they're the same for men and women: Mi compañero es un poco cotilla, Mi compañera es un poco cotilla.
Pelota literally means "ball", and hacerle la pelota a alguien means to suck up to someone. You'll hear it in pretty much every office in Spain 😄
Turn it up or down
This is where most learners slip, and it's what makes you sound natural (or accidentally rude).
| Use | Example | In English |
|---|---|---|
| nada (not at all) | No es nada egoísta. | He isn't selfish at all. |
| un poco (a bit) | Es un poco tacaño. | He's a bit stingy. |
| bastante (quite) | Es bastante tímida. | She's quite shy. |
| muy (very) | Es muy generoso. | He's very generous. |
| súper (really, informal) | Es súper maja. | She's really nice. |
| -ísimo / -ísima (so, so…) | Es simpatiquísimo. | He's so, so nice. |
Here's the trick: in Spanish, un poco goes with the not-so-nice words. Es un poco mandona sounds gentler than Es mandona, so it's polite. But Es un poco simpático sounds like "he's only slightly nice", which comes across as a backhanded compliment. For nice words, use bastante or muy instead.
Notice the spelling in simpatiquísimo, too. The c becomes qu so it keeps its hard sound before the i. Same with rico, which becomes riquísimo.
False friends that cause trouble
Some Spanish words look like English ones and mean something else:
| Spanish | What it means | What it doesn't mean |
|---|---|---|
| sensible | sensitive | sensible (that's sensato) |
| educado / educada | polite, well-mannered | educated (that's culto or con estudios) |
| simpático / simpática | nice, friendly | sympathetic (that's comprensivo) |
There's one more surprise: formal. It can mean formal, but about a person it usually means reliable and responsible. Es un chico muy formal is a compliment, not a comment on his clothes.
Calling someone sensible in Spanish says they're easily hurt or emotional, not that they make good decisions. So if your friend gives you great advice, she's sensata, not sensible 🙈
Some of these words change meaning with ser and estar. Es aburrido means he's boring, but Está aburrido means he's bored. Es orgulloso means he's proud (a bit too proud), but Está orgulloso de ti means he's proud of you. There's more on this in my visual guide to ser and estar.
That one coworker, in a real chat
Two friends catching up about a new job:
Look how B never says anything really harsh. Un poco pelota, un poco cotilla, nada creído. That's how people in Spain talk about each other most of the time ✨
Describe your people this week
Learn them in opposite pairs
Put the words in pairs, like generoso / tacaño, trabajador / vago and educado / maleducado. Then say a sentence with both: Mi hermano es muy generoso, pero mi primo es un poco tacaño.
Describe yourself, honestly
Say one good thing about yourself with muy or bastante, and one not-so-good thing with un poco: Soy bastante trabajadora, pero un poco impaciente.
Ask someone what a person is like
In your next Spanish chat, ask ¿Cómo es tu jefe? or ¿Cómo es tu mejor amiga? Careful: ¿Cómo es? asks what someone's like. ¿Cómo está? asks how they are today.
Want more words for the people in your life? Have a look at family vocabulary in Spanish and work vocabulary in Spanish. And yes, lots of these work for pets too, as you'll see in pet vocabulary in Spanish 🐶
Recap ✨
- Most adjectives follow a few ending patterns: generoso / generosa, amable, trabajador / trabajadora, mandón / mandona.
- Learn a few nice ones that sound very Spanish, like detallista, majo and un cielo.
- Cotilla, quejica and pelota are the same for men and women.
- Use un poco with not-so-nice words, bastante or muy with nice ones, and nada for "not at all".
- Watch out for sensible (sensitive), educado (polite) and simpático (nice).
If you'd like to learn everyday topics like this one in order, with games, speaking prompts and cheat sheets, take a look at my Roadmaps 🗺️
Now I'm curious 👀 Which word from this post describes you best? And which one describes that one coworker? Cuéntame in the comments (no names needed 😉)
¡Un abrazo!
Lucía ☕
Lucía · Linguist, translator, Spanish teacher and author of the Visual Spanish Grammar Book.
Come and learn Spanish with me and other aventureros like yourself at skool.com/learnspanish 🎉