Breakdown of El martes cierro la tienda temprano.
yo
I
cerrar
to close
temprano
early
la tienda
the store
el martes
the Tuesday
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Questions & Answers about El martes cierro la tienda temprano.
Why is El used before martes?
In Spanish, you put a definite article before days of the week to mean “on.” El martes literally means “on Tuesday.” Without El, the phrase sounds ungrammatical: Martes cierro la tienda temprano is wrong in normal speech. If you talk about something happening every Tuesday, you pluralize and say Los martes (on Tuesdays).
What does cierro mean and why is it in this form?
Cierro is the first-person singular (yo) present-tense form of cerrar (“to close”). It means “I close” or “I am closing.” Spanish often drops the pronoun yo because the verb ending -o already tells you the subject is “I.”
Why is the present tense used for an action that will happen in the future?
Spanish frequently uses the present tense for planned or scheduled events, especially in the near future. Here, cierro can be understood as “I’m closing” or “I will close” the shop on Tuesday. If you prefer to emphasize the future, you could use cerraré (“I will close”), but the present is perfectly natural for a fixed plan.
Could I use cerraré instead of cierro? What’s the difference?
Yes. Cerraré is the simple future tense (“I will close”). It makes the future timing more explicit or formal. Cierro (present) feels more conversational and treats the closing as part of a set schedule. Both are correct, but they carry slightly different shades of meaning.
Why is there a la before tienda? In English we often say “I close shop.”
In Spanish, you normally use the definite article with singular, countable nouns when talking about them in general or in context. La tienda means “the store/shop.” Even if you’re not naming a specific shop by brand, you still include la.
Why is temprano placed at the end of the sentence?
Temprano is an adverb of time meaning “early.” Adverbs of time in Spanish typically come after the verb or at the very end. So you get cierro la tienda temprano. You could shift it to the front (Temprano cierro la tienda el martes) to emphasize early, but the default is at the end.
Why aren’t the days of the week (like martes) capitalized in Spanish?
Unlike English, Spanish does not capitalize names of the days of the week or months. So you always write martes, enero, etc., in lower-case unless they start a sentence.
How do you pronounce cierro, tienda, and temprano?
Break them into syllables and stress the marked syllable (no written accents here, the stress is determined by general rules):
- cier-ro (CLI-eh-roh in Latin America): stress on the first syllable cier.
- tien-da (TYEHN-dah): stress on tien.
- tem-pra-no (TEM-prah-noh): stress on tem.
All vowels are clear. The double “r” in cerrar (root of cierro) is a tapped or slightly rolled r, as in many Spanish dialects.