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Hi, mi name is Alejandra, but you can call me Ale. The question is: What's the difference between "malo" and "mal"? MALO is an adjective, MAL is an adverb. BAD. people, things, situations: bad quality, or bad for your health or well-being. So, here are a few examples: ¿Qué tal estuvo la película? Muy mala. How was the movie? Really bad. BAD quality. Fumar es malo para tu salud. Smoking is bad for your health. THE VERB SMOKING IS USED AS A NOUN HERE, SO WE USE MALO. WRONG. You use the word mal to describe an action that is being executed in an unsatisfactory way. Here are a few examples: Mirna coció mal el arroz. Mirna cooked the rice wrong. Luis contestó mal el examen. Luis answered the test wrong. We never use the verb SER with MAL. We use the verb ESTAR. If we want to say: Victor is wrong, we don't say: Víctor es mal we say: Víctor ESTÁ mal. WATCH OUT. 1. Malo changes to mal when it comes before a masculine noun, but it remains an adjective. José is a bad dancer. José es un mal bailarín. MAL is still describing José as a dancer, but we remove the O for phonetic reasons.