To what degree: muy, bastante, demasiado and the comparison as a whole
Adjectives rarely walk alone: nearly always a word stands beside them saying how much. Those words never agree — not for gender, not for number: muy caro, muy cara, muy caros. For example: “El piso es muy luminoso, pero un poco pequeño” — The flat is very bright, but a little small. A rule from the Spanish course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
Adjectives rarely walk alone: nearly always a word stands beside them saying how much. Those words never agree — not for gender, not for number: muy caro, muy cara, muy caros.
The scale lines up like this: nada — not at all, poco — not enough, un poco — a little bit, bastante — quite, muy — very, demasiado — too. Between poco and un poco the difference matters and is not obvious: poco cómodo means 'uncomfortable', while un poco pequeño means 'a tiny bit small'. That is why un poco is attached only to what the speaker counts as a flaw: un poco caro is normal, but un poco bonito is simply not said.
Muy cannot stand by itself. Asked 'expensive?', you do not answer muy — you answer mucho: ¿es caro? — sí, mucho. That is the second place where muy and mucho part ways: the first always sits with an adjective or adverb, the second — with a verb or all alone.
You can compare not only a word but a whole phrase. Equality goes through tan ... como: este piso es tan caro como el otro. Inequality — through más ... que and menos ... que: el alquiler es más alto que el año pasado. When amounts rather than qualities are compared, tan becomes tanto and agrees: tantos muebles como antes, tanta luz como en el otro piso.
And the last thing, with no English counterpart at all: the article lo before an adjective turns it into an abstract noun. Lo bueno del piso es la luz — 'the good thing about the flat is the light'; lo difícil es la mudanza — 'the hard part is the move'. The word is always masculine singular, because there is no actual object behind it.
Table
| degree | word | example | meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| not at all | nada | no es nada caro | not expensive at all |
| not enough | poco | un piso poco cómodo | an uncomfortable flat |
| a little bit | un poco | un poco caro | a bit expensive |
| quite | bastante | bastante grande | quite big |
| very | muy | muy luminoso | very bright |
| too | demasiado | demasiado ruidoso | too noisy |
| as … as | tan … como | tan caro como | as expensive as |
By example
- El piso es muy luminoso, pero un poco pequeñoThe flat is very bright, but a little small
- Este alquiler es tan caro como el del centroThis rent is as expensive as the one downtown
- Lo peor de la mudanza es empaquetar los librosThe worst part of moving is packing the books
How the rule settles in your head
A rule is not memorized from an explanation. It is memorized from an attempt to use it and a mistake — that is why the app delivers it mixed in with words, not as a separate lesson: it resurfaces exactly where you forgot it.
Frequently asked
To what degree: how does it work in Spanish?
Adjectives rarely walk alone: nearly always a word stands beside them saying how much. Those words never agree — not for gender, not for number: muy caro, muy cara, muy caros.
What does it look like in an example sentence Spanish?
“El piso es muy luminoso, pero un poco pequeño” — The flat is very bright, but a little small. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.