Personality Traits in Spanish: List, Phrases and Descriptions

¿Cómo describes tu personalidad? ¿Cómo eres? Those are two basic questions that people will ask to know more about your personality in Spanish. There are many words you can learn for personality traits – “rasgos de personalidad” – and that is why we will learn some of these adjectives in this lesson. For this purpose, we have prepared several examples of conversations, interactive quizzes and listening activities with key verbs like SER plus personality traits so that you also are able to describe your personality in Spanish. Let’s start…

A List of personality traits in Spanish – Los Rasgos de personalidad

First, words for personality traits in Spanish are actually adjectives, so sentences with these words must follow noun-adjective agreement rules. Notice that the phrase “RASGOS DE PERSONALIDAD” is used to refer to personality traits. The words in the picture below are probably the most common personality traits you will hear in real life interactions, but we encourage you to find others and use them to describe your personality in Spanish and other people’s character as well.

A list of personality traits in Spanish used to describe people's personality in Spanish — Los rasgos de personalidad

Before moving on, please take a couple of minutes to watch this resourceful video with a list of at least thirty different personality traits in Spanish. We will explain the basic structure of these types of sentences, and we will show you several examples of questions and statements on the topic that will help you better understand the conversations about character and personality that we will see later. You can activate the subtitles in English or Spanish if you want. Then, solve the vocabulary quiz for this topic below.

Talking about people’s personality in Spanish – La personalidad

Sentence structure to describe personality in Spanish

First, let’s discuss a little about the structure of sentences about personality in Spanish. It is very similar to the one used to describe people’s appearance. In order to ask “what kind of person are you?”, you could use the questions ¿Cómo eres (tú)?, ¿Cómo es tu personalidad? or even ¿Qué tipo de persona eres?. Sentences describing personality in Spanish usually follow the structure explained in this picture:

The grammar structure to describe people's personality in Spanish by using the verb SER and adjectives

That being said, if you want to say something like “he is optimistic”, then you should say “Él es optimista” using ÉL as the subject of the sentence, ES as the main verb and OPTIMISTA as the personality trait. If you want to describe your personality in Spanish, then you should start with “Yo soy + adjetivos” or perhaps “(Yo) No soy + adjetivos”. In addition, you can say what kind of person you would like to be using “Me gustaría ser + adjetivo” (I would like to be…) or “Trataré de ser + adjetivo” (I will try to be…). See all of this in use in the sample conversation below:

Cintia: Estaba pensando ahorita sobre nuestra personalidad ¿Cómo describes tu personalidad?
Roberto: Esa es una buena pregunta… No sé, yo diría que soy optimista, independiente, práctico, activo y alegre
Cintia: Si, yo creo que eres todo eso, pero tú también eres algo despistado.
Roberto: Es cierto. A veces soy despistado, así que trataré de ser más cuidadoso como tú.

Read translation: What is your personality like? in Spanish

Cynthia: I was thinking right now about our personality. How would you describe your personality?
Roberto: That’s a good question … I do not know, I would say that I am optimistic, independent, practical, active and cheerful..
Cynthia: Yes, I think you are all of that too, but you are also somewhat absent-minded.
Roberto: It’s true. Sometimes I’m clueless, so I will try to be more careful like you.

Synonyms and antonyms in Spanish – Los sinónimos y los antónimos

When someone asks you “¿Cómo eres?”, they could be asking about your physical appearance as well. Most of the time the question will be about your personality though. A nice way to begin is with “Creo que soy…” (I think that…) or “Me parece que soy…” (I think I am) plus one or a list of personality traits in Spanish, e.g. “Creo que soy honesto, amable, servicial…”. If you want to know the other person’s opinion, then you should ask “¿Qué opinas tú?“.

Using synonyms, antonyms and other adjectives to talk about personality in Spanish

Spanish adjectives usually have one or several antonyms and synonyms, “Sinónimos y Antónimos”. LOS SINÓNIMOS are words that mean the same or almost the same such as INTELIGENTE and LISTO (smart), whereas LOS ANTÓNIMOS are words that mean the opposite like OPTIMISTA and PESIMISTA. Synonyms and antonyms are very easy to identify in the vocabulary for personality traits in Spanish. When learning a new language, creating associations among words makes it easier to remember the new vocabulary.

Cintia: ¿Cómo eres?
Roberto: ¿Cómo soy? Bien ¿Te refieres a mi apariencia física o a mi personalidad?
Cintia: A tu personalidad
Roberto: Vaya, creo que soy reservado y muy sereno la mayoría del tiempo. Soy sociable cuando debo serlo e inteligente también. ¿Qué opinas tú?
Cintia: Pues sí, me parece que eres una persona ambiciosa y amistosa también, aunque algunas veces eres pesimista.
Roberto: Tienes razón. Creo que debo ser más confiado y optimista en las cosas que hago.

Read English translation: My personality in Spanish

Cintia: How are you?
Roberto: How am I? Well, you mean my physical appearance or my personality?
Cintia: Your personality
Roberto: Well, I think I’m very quiet and serene most of the time. I am sociable when I should be and intelligent too. What do you think?
Cynthia: Well yeah, I think you’re an ambitious, friendly person, but sometimes you’re pessimistic.
Roberto: You’re right. I think I should be more confident and optimistic in the things I do.

Interactive quiz: Adjectives for personality, positive or negative?

Read each of the sentences using 30 personality traits in Spanish and classify them as positive or negative.

Activities that people like and their personalities in Spanish

Oftentimes, you can relate certain personality traits to the activities that people normally like or dislike to do. For instance, if someone says “Me gusta escalar montañas” (I like to climb mountains…), then you could infer that he is “aventurero”. Last, the verb SENTIR (to feel) might be useful to talk about personality in Spanish in phrases like “Siento que soy…“. Listen to the last sample conversation using all the things we have explained so far.

Roberto: Sabes, me gustaría saber más sobre tu personalidad, ¿Cómo eres?, o ¿Cómo sientes que eres?
Cintia: Qué te digo… bien, yo soy una chica generosa, aventurera y audaz. Me gustan los retos y me gusta compartir con otras personas. Soy muy imaginativa y creativa. Me encanta crear cosas nuevas y jugar con la imaginación. Hay días en los que siento que soy mal humorada…
Roberto: Bueno, yo estoy de acuerdo con todo, principalmente con lo de malhumorada. Al final, todos somos una combinación de rasgos de personalidad, de optimista a pesimista, de simpático a odioso, pero eso es lo que nos hace interesantes.

Read English translation: Activities and personality in Spanish

Roberto: You know, I would like to know more about your personality, How are you? o How do you feel you are?
Cintia: What can I say… well, I’m a generous, adventurous and daring girl. I like challenges and I like to share with others. I am very imaginative and creative. I love creating new things and play with imagination. There are days when I feel that I am morose …
Roberto: Well, I agree with everything, especially with the bad-tempered part. In the end we are all a combination of personality traits, from optimistic to pessimistic, hateful to sympathetic, but that’s what makes us interesting.

Listening Activity No. 1: Describing your personality in Spanish – ¿Cómo eres?

Listen to a conversation between two friends who are talking about their personalities in Spanish. This conversation includes some of the expressions and questions presented in the examples. Then, solve the exercises in the interactive quiz about it. Good luck!

Key expressions in the conversation:

En buen sentido means “In a good sense”
Sin ofender means “No offense”
De ahora en adelante means “From now on”

Read conversation script: Describing your personality in Spanish

Roberto: Hola Cintia ¿Te gustó el tema de la clase de psicología de hoy?
Cintia: La verdad es que sí. La personalidad es un tema interesante. Hay muchos rasgos de personalidad diferentes.
Roberto: Cierto. ¿Cómo describirías tu personalidad?
Cintia: Buena pregunta… Yo creo que soy cuidadosa, optimista, alegre y práctica. Me gusta ayudar a otras personas, así que también soy generosa. Me gusta tener muchos amigos, así que también soy amistosa… ¿Qué opinas?
Roberto: Es una buena descripción de tu personalidad. Pienso que también eres ambiciosa, en buen sentido, y muy creativa también.
Cintia: Vaya, esto es un tema interesante ¿Cómo eres tú?
Roberto: Qué te digo… no sé, yo soy una persona serena y reservada la mayoría del tiempo. No me gusta ser pesimista y trato de ser activo e independiente. No soy aventurero ni odioso ¿Qué crees tú?
Cintia: Pues yo creo que eres muy inteligente, pero también eres malhumorado a veces sin ofender.
Roberto: Está bien… trataré de ser más simpático de ahora en adelante.

Listening Activity No. 2: My personality in Spanish – Mi personalidad

In this last activity, we will practice the structure for sentences about personality in Spanish and the vocabulary of this topic. Complete the sentences with the correct vocabulary according to the content of the recording.

We got to the end of this lesson. We hope that you found the examples that we presented very useful and that you can use this knowledge as a basis to describe your own personality in Spanish naturally and fluently. See you soon!