Los niños juegan en la arena.

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Breakdown of Los niños juegan en la arena.

• jugar: to play
• el niño: the child
• la arena: the sand

Questions & Answers about Los niños juegan en la arena.

Why is los used before niños? In English we often say “children play” without “the.”

In Spanish you generally include the definite article before nouns, even for general statements. Los is the masculine plural definite article, so los niños literally means “the children,” but it’s also how you express “children” as a general group. Omitting the article (e.g., niños juegan) sounds unnatural in Spanish.

Why is the word niños masculine plural? What if the group is all girls or mixed?

Spanish nouns and adjectives have grammatical gender. Niños is masculine plural and can refer to boys or a mixed group of boys and girls. If the group consists only of girls, you use las niñas (feminine plural). For a single boy, it would be el niño; for a single girl, la niña.

What tense and person is juegan? How does it relate to jugar?

Juegan is the third person plural (ellos/ellas/ustedes) present tense form of the verb jugar (“to play”). It translates as “they play” or “they are playing,” depending on context.

Why does jugar change its stem to jueg- in juegan instead of staying jug-?