El perro ensucia la silla.

the chair

Breakdown of El perro ensucia la silla.

• el perro: the dog
• ensuciar: to dirty

Questions & Answers about El perro ensucia la silla.

What does the verb ensucia mean in this sentence?

Ensucia is the third-person singular form of the verb ensuciar, which means “to dirty” or “to make dirty.” Thus, the sentence tells us that “the dog dirties the chair.”

How is the verb ensuciar conjugated in this sentence?

In the sentence, ensucia is conjugated in the simple present tense for the third person singular. Since el perro (the dog) is singular, ensucia correctly agrees with its subject.

Why is the definite article el used before perro?

In Spanish, nouns have a grammatical gender. The noun perro (dog) is masculine, so it takes the masculine definite article el. This is why we say el perro instead of la perro.

What role does la silla play in this sentence?

La silla is the direct object of the sentence. It is the entity that receives the action of the verb, meaning “the chair” is what gets dirtied by the dog.

Is the word order of this sentence similar to that of English, and how?

Yes, the word order in this sentence is subject-verb-object, just like in English. El perro (subject) comes first, followed by ensucia (verb), and then la silla (object), making it structurally similar to “The dog dirties the chair.”

Why do both nouns in the sentence include definite articles?

In Spanish, when referring to specific or generally understood entities, nouns are commonly preceded by definite articles. Here, el perro and la silla indicate that the sentence is about a specific dog and a specific chair (or about dogs and chairs in general), similar to how English uses “the” for definite references.