¿Cómo Eres? What Are You Like?

Although it might sound similar to the question ¿Cómo estás?, which is asking about how you are feeling right now, ¿Cómo eres? is asking what you are like. If you think about the differences between ser and estar, it makes sense that the first question is asking about your condition right now, and the second is asking about your personality. ¿Cómo eres? is a way to ask about someone’s description and characteristics, and in this article, we’ll give you some tools to describe yourself.

Grammar tips to keep in mind to answer ¿Cómo eres?

It’s important to remember that in Spanish, adjectives have grammatical gender. This means that if you identify as female, some of them require you to end the adjective in -a, and if you identify as male, you’d end it in -o. A good example of this is the word alto/a, where a boy would say alto and a girl would say alta. Also, although you could answer with just one word, to answer in a full sentence, you’d want to use the word soy, which means I am in English. So, to say I am tall in a full sentence as a female, I would say Soy alta. Now that we’ve gone through the grammar, let’s take a look at some vocabulary to describe ourselves!

Physical descriptions

If someone asks you ¿Cómo eres?, you might want to respond with physical traits, meaning they are traits you can see. Some good ones to know are:

• Alto/a– tall
• Bajo/a– short
• Bonito/a– pretty
• Feo/a– ugly
• Guapo/a– gorgeous, handsome
• Joven- young
• Musculoso/a– muscular
• Viejo/a– old ***in some cultures, this is rude, and it’s better to use mayor instead

Personality traits

Sometimes, you want to describe your personality traits, or the characteristics that you can’t see. Here are some great adjectives for beginners to learn:

• Antipático/a- unfriendly
• Ambicioso/a– ambitious
• Cómico/a- funny *** in some dialects, you might here chistoso/a instead
• Divertido/a– fun
• Estudioso/a– studious
• Honesto/a– honest
• Inteligente– intelligent
• Simpático/a– nice
• Trabajador/a– hard working

The next time you meet someone new and introduce yourself, challenge yourself to use some new adjectives to describe yourself. Practicing new vocabulary is a great way to improve your fluency. Are there other adjectives that you like to use to describe yourself in Spanish? Let us know!