Learn Dozens of Descriptive Spanish Words with This Simple Pattern

Cognate Pattern #3

Here’s another Cognate Pattern to give your Spanish vocabulary an instant boost. This one is especially fun because it unlocks a whole world of descriptive adjectives, the kind of words that make your Spanish sound more expressive and, well, delicious.

As you know by now, cognates are those helpful words in two languages that look and sound similar and mean the same thing. They're like linguistic shortcuts that open up conversational pathways. Learn the patterns they follow, and suddenly your vocabulary progresses without too much extra effort. Curioso to find out more?

Cognate Pattern #3: "–ous" → "–oso" / "–osa"

In English, we have loads of adjectives ending in "-ous" — curious, generous, famous, nervous, and so on. In Spanish, most of these follow a predictable transformation:

• Masculine adjectives end in -oso

• Feminine adjectives end in -osa

Examples:

English - Spanish (masc.) - Spanish (fem.)

curious - curioso - curiosa

generous - generoso - generosa

delicious - delicioso - deliciosa

nervous - nervioso - nerviosa

famous - famoso - famosa

dangerous - peligroso - peligrosa

ambitious - ambicioso - ambiciosa

These are high-utility words. You'll hear them in everyday conversation, and use them constantly when describing people, places, and food - basically anything worth talking about!

Why This Pattern Exists

Like many other cognates, this pattern goes back to Latin. In Latin, adjectives ending in -osus meant "full of" or "having the quality of." Over time, Spanish inherited that -osus ending almost intact, turning it into -oso / -osa.

English also borrowed these words, but through French, which is why we end up with the "-ous" spelling instead. The meaning, though, stayed pretty consistent.

Simple Sentences Using "-oso / -osa" Cognates

• La comida estaba deliciosa. = The food was delicious.

• Me siento nervioso por el examen. = I feel nervous about the exam.

• Marta es una persona muy generosa. = Marta is a very generous person.

• Es una ciudad famosa por su arquitectura. = It’s a city famous for its architecture.

Even if you didn't know every word in those sentences, you could probably guess the meaning of the "-oso/-osa" adjectives from context, which is exactly why this pattern is so useful.

A Few Exceptions

Not every "-ous" word in English will transform neatly into "-oso/-osa."

• Jealous becomes celoso (note the "c," not "j")

• Hazardous doesn't become hazardoso — it's peligroso (different root altogether)¹

• Obvious is obvio/obvia (drops the -oso entirely). You hear this word all the time, so your ear will get used to this change.

Anyway, while this shortcut works most of the time, it's always worth checking unfamiliar words in context.

Homework

1. Write three original sentences using any of these words: curioso, famoso, ambicioso.

2. Next time you read an article or listen to a Spanish podcast, see how many -oso/-osa words you can spot. You'll be surprised at how many you already understand without memorising them.

This pattern is a great example of how recognising small shifts in spelling can open up a huge amount of vocabulary with minimal effort. And as with our previous patterns, the key is to use them, whether that's in writing, in speaking, or even in those inner monologues we all have running in our heads.

¡Hasta la próxima, amigos!

James

1. Apparently, the etymology of peligroso comes from the Latin word periculum, which means/meant risk or danger. I should hasten to add that I never studied Latin, though it would have been useful for my Spanish, so I had to look that up on Wiktionary.