Mal vs. Malo

Question

When do you use mal and when do you use malo?

Answer 1

It's a matter of how we're used to collocating those words.

1. Esto está malo. (= referring to a condition.)
   Esto es malo. (= permanent situation.)
2. Esto está mal. (= referring to a situation.)
   NOT Esto es mal.

Answer 2

When used as an adverb, as in, "Pancho canta mal" You can leave it in the short form.

When used as an adjective, it is the position that determines whether or not to drop the final "o"

"Pedro es un mal muchacho. and Pedro es un muchacho malo" are totally equal.

The same works for "bueno" In front of a masculine singular noun, the "o" gets dropped.

There were definitely some bad answers before yours. :) - bosquederoble, Dec 5, 2016

Probably best to avoid nouns, el mal, el malo, lo malo. :) - bosquederoble, Dec 5, 2016

I did not go into these to avoid confusing the OP. - Daniela2041, Dec 5, 2016

Answer 3

Personally, I would use malo to describe behavior and mal for health.

Answer 4

The click-on translator says that "mal" is "not good" and "malo" is "bad boy."

The dictionary on this site shows mal as this (and adjective or adverb meaning bad) and malo as this (adjective meaning bad or noun meaning villian).

So, the real question would be, when used as an adjective, how do "mal" and "malo" differ in meaning. Personally, I have no idea, but thanks for bringing it up.