El té está caliente.

to be

Breakdown of El té está caliente.

• el té: the tea
• caliente: hot

Questions & Answers about El té está caliente.

Why is té written with an accent on the “é”?

The accent mark on té shows that the stress falls on the final syllable. Without the accent, te would be pronounced with stress on the first syllable and means the indirect object pronoun “to you.” The accent distinguishes the noun té (the drink) from the pronoun te.

Why is the article el used before té? Couldn’t we say just “Té está caliente”?

In Spanish, most singular, countable nouns take a definite article when you refer to them in a specific way. El té means “the tea” (a particular cup of tea). Omitting the article (“Té está caliente”) sounds unnatural in this context. You could drop the article in more general statements (e.g., Té caliente es muy sabroso), but even then it’s more common to include el.

Why is está used instead of es?

Spanish has two verbs for “to be”: ser and estar.
• Estar describes temporary states or conditions (how something is right now).
• Ser describes permanent qualities or identity.
Since hotness of tea is a temporary condition, you use está caliente and not es caliente.

Why does the adjective caliente come after the noun?