This & That

1. THIS and THAT have an external frame of reference.
2. In English (and in Chinese), a 2-way distinction is used: THIS (這) (proximal) refers to an object that is close to speakers and THAT(那) (distal) refers to an object that is further away from the speaker.
3. Spanish adopts a 3-way distinction: proximal, medial and distal. They are listed below from [4] to [6].
4. Este/estos(masculino singular/plural), esta/estas(femenino singular/plural) are all proximal: they refer to an object that is close to the speaker.
5. Ese/esos(masculino singular/plural), esa/esas(femenino singular/plural) are all medial: they refer to an object that is close to the addressee.
6. Aquel/aquellos(masculino singular/plural), aquella/aquellas(femenino singular/plural) are all distal: they refer to an object that is far away from both speaker and addressee.
7. The use of masculino(陽性) or femenino(陰性) depends on the gender of the object to which the demonstrative refers.
8. Example of [7]: este vaso (means "this cup" and vaso is masculino), esta mesa. (means "this table" and mesa is femenino)
9. In general, nouns ending in the letter "a" are femenino whereas nouns ending in the letter "o" are masculino.
10. Some exceptions to [9]: mano, moto, foto; mapa, sofá.

References:

1. Web article "Demonstrative" on Wikipedia
2. 何仕凡, Español Básico, 世界圖書出版公司 2003