Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): Compro pollo en el mercado por la mañana. - I buy chicken at the market in the morning.

Spanish is a pro-drop language: verb endings already tell you the subject. Compro is first-person singular, so adding yo would be redundant unless you want to emphasize “I” specifically.

What tense and mood is compro, and what nuance does it carry here?

Compro is the present indicative of comprar for yo. It usually expresses a habitual action or general fact (“I buy chicken as a regular thing”). It’s not progressive—if you wanted “I am buying,” you’d use estoy comprando.

Why is pollo singular and without an article?

Here pollo refers to chicken meat in general (an uncountable sense). Spanish often drops the article when talking about food in general. So Compro pollo = “I buy chicken (in general).” If you meant “one whole chicken,” you’d say un pollo.

Could I say yo compro un pollo en el mercado por la mañana instead?

Yes. Un pollo specifies one chicken. Use that if you really mean a whole bird. But if you’re buying chicken pieces or meat in bulk, you’d leave out the article.

Why is en used before el mercado instead of a?