"Poco/Poca"

Question

When using "poco" to mean "a little," must it match the subject of the sentence in terms of gender? For example, if I want to say "I want a little water," would I say "Quiero un poco de agua," "Quiero una poca de agua," or what?

Thanks!

Answer 1

In this case, I believe that "poco" is a noun, so it doesn't need to match the noun "agua." If I said "pocas cosas" or "poco dinero", it would be an adjective, so it would have to match the noun it modifies.

• Yes, it's a noun here . It doesn't modify/agree with anything. - samdie Oct 28, 2009

Answer 2

Yes, you need to have BOTH number and gender match when you write a sentence. For example, if you are trying to say "The girls are pretty" you would write "Las chicas están bonitas." The subject of the sentence (here, "chicas") must match in both number (there are multiple girls, so you use "las" instead of "la" and "bonitas" instead of "bonita") and gender (use "las" instead of "los" and "bonitas" instead of "bonitos"). Hope that helps!

Answer 3

Well, in this case you would say "Poco de agua" but only because agua is masculine, despite it ending in an "a." (I may be incorrect, I've triple checked with a couple different translation websites each giving me a different answer. )

But yes, you would modify the adjective to match it to the noun you are describing.

• Actually, agua is feminine. However, it is written "el agua" because if it was written "la agua" then the two words would run together. - JCameron Oct 27, 2009

Answer 4

poco, as opposed to poca, is masculine. poca is feminine. depending on the last letter of the word (in most cases), you would use the corresponding word. if you have more than one of whatever you are talking about, then its plural. you would then use "os/es" for masculine plural, and "as" for feminine plural. (again this is in most cases. there are exceptions to those rules).

Answer 5

If you use poco as an adjective, then yes, it must agree in number and gender with the noun it is modifying.

If you use poco as an adverb, then it is always poco.

So the answer depends on your usage.