When we talk about the smaller version of an object, animal or a person, there are two ways to do it. 

Just like English, we can add the word “little” in front of the noun. The word for little is “pequeño” and this changes according to gender and quantity. Here are some examples.

The more commonly used way is by adding a suffix to the word depending on how the word ends in their singular form. This is often used with people, animals or concrete objects. We hardly ever use this when talking about abstract concepts like “happiness”, “love” or “art”.

If the word ends in “a”, “o”, “io” or “ia”, we remove the last part and add the suffix –ito or –ita for singular and –itos or –itas for plural.

If the word ends in “e”, “i”, “u” or any vowel with an accent, we remove the last part and add the suffix –cito or –cita for singular and –citos or –citas for plural.

This also works if the word ends in “n” or “r”.

If the word ends in any other consonant, we add the suffix –ito or –ita for singular and –itos or –itas for plural.