Too + adjective in Spanish: demasiado, not muy

Course · Unit: Quantity CEFR A2 Reviewed by Jhoslyn Updated 2026-09-12

Draft copy. Every claim needs a native-speaker check before publishing — the byline is what makes this citable, so it has to be earned.

Very and too are not the same word

English keeps them apart and so does Spanish. Learners collapse both into muy, and the sentence stops meaning what they wanted.

• Está muy caro. — it’s very expensive. An observation. It might still be worth it.
• Está demasiado caro. — it’s too expensive. A verdict. It is more than I will pay.

Demasiado carries the judgement “more than it should be”. That is the whole difference, and it is the same difference English makes.

Before an adjective, demasiado never agrees

This is the mechanical rule, and it is easier than the alternative.

• Ese hotel es demasiado grande.
• Esa mochila es demasiado bonita.
• Esos carros son demasiado baratos.
• Estamos demasiado cansados.

Bonita is feminine, carros is plural, and demasiado sits there unchanged in all of them. When it is doing the job of “too”, it is an adverb, and adverbs in Spanish do not agree with anything.

The same holds in front of another adverb: llegaste demasiado tarde.

Before a noun, it does agree

Here it means “too much” or “too many”, and now it behaves like a quantifier — four forms, matching the noun.

So the test is the same one as everywhere else in this unit: what comes next? An adjective or adverb, it is frozen. A noun, it agrees.

And after a verb, on its own, it is frozen again and goes after the verb: trabajas demasiado, comí demasiado.

In a market, this choice is a negotiating move

At a stall in Surquillo or a craft market in Miraflores, the two sentences do different work.

• Está muy caro. — opens the conversation. It invites a counter-offer, and it usually gets one.
• Está demasiado caro. — closes it. It says this is beyond what I will pay, and the next thing that happens is that you walk or they move properly.

Neither is rude. But if you say demasiado when you meant muy, you have ended a negotiation you wanted to have.

The softer, more Peruvian version of the first move is not an adjective at all:

¿No me hace un descuentito?

The -ito on descuento does most of the work. It is friendly, it is expected, and it is far more effective than an adjective.

One honest caveat

In casual Lima speech people do stretch muy into territory English would call “too” — está muy caro para mí is perfectly natural and clearly means it is beyond your budget. So this is not a rule the language enforces at every turn. But when you need the distinction to land — a complaint, a refusal, a real limit — demasiado is the word that lands it.

Try it

1. This coffee is too hot.
2. There are too many people in the office.
3. Those shoes are too small. (they are los zapatos)
4. You work too much.

→ 1 Este café está demasiado caliente · 2 Hay demasiada gente en la oficina · 3 Esos zapatos son demasiado pequeños — demasiado unchanged, pequeños agreeing · 4 Trabajas demasiado.

Topics AdjectivesMoney and bargaining