Indefinite Words: Talking about Something and
Nothing
Understanding Indefinite Words
Sometimes you don’t exactly know what you want to refer to. It could be something, or
someone, or anyone, for that matter.
These sorts of words are indefinite words. Spanish has them just as English does.
algo
something, anything
alguien
someone, somebody
alguna vez
once, sometime
alguno/a
some, any
cualquier/a
whichever, whatever
Note that algo and alguien never change forms—there is NO such thing as “algos” or
“alguienes.” However, alguno and cualquier do change forms according to
gender. Alguno also changes form according to quantity (in which case it translates as
“several”).
Por ejemplo:
1. Algo pasó en el banco.
- Something happened in the bank.
2. Alguna vez en mi vida, quiero volar en un avión pequeño.
- Sometime in my life, I’d like to fly in a small plane.
3. Alguien está en mi cuarto.
- Someone is in my room.
4. ¿Cuál bebida te gusta? —No me importa; cualquiera está bien para mí.
- Which drink do you like? —I don’t care; whichever is fine for me.
5. Vamos a llevar algunos en caso de emergencia.
- We’re going to take several in case of emergency.
Some other useful words along this vein are:
Por ejemplo:
siempre
always
también
also, too
Understanding Negative Words
Perhaps, though, you don’t want to talk about somebody or something. Perhaps you
prefer to talk about nobody and nothing. These are negative indefinite words. In
Spanish, there is a word with exactly the opposite meaning for each of the positive
words you learned above.
Positive Indefinite
Negative Indefinite
Translation
algo
nada
nothing
alguien
nadie
no one / nobody
alguno
ningún
not any
cualquier
ninguno/a
neither one
o
ni
neither / nor
siempre
nunca, jamás
never
también
tampoco
neither / not either
Forming negatives in Spanish can be tricky. Sometimes you can form a negative
sentence in Spanish just as you would in English.
Por ejemplo:
There’s another way of forming negative sentences, however. This involves placing the
word no before the verb. (Make sure that you do NOT place it before the subject.)
Por ejemplo:



If you want to add a negative indefinite word like “nobody” or “nothing” to a negative
sentence, you’re going to have to unlearn some English grammar!
Remember how you learned in school that you should never say things like…
• I ain’t never done it.
• He don’t know nothing.
• There isn’t no one here.
These are called double negatives … and they’re perfectly fine in Spanish!
No lo he hecho nunca.
Él no sabe nada.
No hay nadie aquí.
In fact, you have to form double negatives in Spanish, because that’s the proper way to
form those sentences grammatically.
Por ejemplo: