ese and eso

Question

i was always taught in school ese and esa mean that but when i see spanish i see eso what is that my teacher said that there is ese esa esos esas so whats the diffrence between ese and eso

Answer 1

"Eso" (as well as esto) refer to abstract, or unknown things.

For example- say all of the sudden you heard a loud boom outside. You would say: "¿Qué fue eso?" (What was that?). We use "eso" because it's abstract.

Another example would be something like "¿Quien te dijo eso?" (Who told you that?) We don't really have a noun that we can make "eso" change into. Therefore it's an abstract thing.

Answer 2

ese is masculine - ese sillón, ese zapato (that sofa, that shoe)

esa is feminine - esa mesa, esa luz (that chair, that light)

eso would be considered general, when you're not specifying something. imagine if you asked someone to hand you something and you say "give me that" instead of specifically saying "give me that tool" or "give me that chair".

BradyLabuda's example of "what was that?" is perfect. ¿eso que fué?

the s on the end is simply plurals.

however the plural of ese is esos. eg:

esa mesa / esas mesas (that table / those tables)

ese vaso / esos vasos (that glass / those glasses)

Basically ese is the singular version of esos - you can't have "eso sombrero", instead you have ese sombrero O esos sombreros!

hope it's some sort of clarification?

Thank you. That was very helpful! - 0095ca4c, Apr 16, 2012

Answer 3

It is another of the quirks of Spanish. The logical thing would have been to use ese and este for the abstract and stick to the masculine and femenine endings for the others: eso and esto for masculine and esa and esta for feminine. But Nooooooooooooo. Let's make it a little harder. lol.

lol. - náufrago, Apr 16, 2012

Answer 4

thanks guys so to my understanding of these answers are ese and esa are used when your specific like dame ese lapiz but eso is for general