Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): Los niños juegan cerca de un árbol.

Los niños juegan cerca de un árbol.

The children play near a tree.

Breakdown of Los niños juegan cerca de un árbol.

Questions & Answers about Los niños juegan cerca de un árbol.

Why do we say los niños instead of just niños?

In Spanish you generally use the definite article los before a noun when talking about a group, whether specific or general. So los niños can mean the children or children in general. Omitting los (as in Niños juegan…) sounds incomplete.

What tense and subject does juegan represent?

Juegan is the present indicative, third-person plural form of jugar (to play). It corresponds to they play or formal you all play (ustedes).

Why does jugar change to juegan with ue?

Jugar is a stem-changing (boot) verb. Its stem jug- changes the u to ue in all forms except nosotros and vosotros. So you get jueg- + -an = juegan.

Why is there a de after cerca? Can’t we say cerca un árbol?

In Spanish, cerca (near) must be followed by de when introducing the thing you’re near. Always use cerca de + noun, so cerca de un árbol = near a tree. Omitting de is ungrammatical here.