Breakdown of Luego llenamos el tanque de gasolina antes de salir de la ciudad.
nosotros
we
de
of
antes de
before
de
from
la ciudad
the city
salir
to leave
luego
then
llenar
to fill
el tanque
the tank
la gasolina
the gasoline
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Questions & Answers about Luego llenamos el tanque de gasolina antes de salir de la ciudad.
What does luego mean in this sentence, and how is it different from después or más tarde?
Here, luego functions as an adverb meaning “then” or “after that,” marking the next step in a sequence.
- después can often be used similarly (e.g. “Después llenamos…”), but when you want to say “after doing something,” you need después de
- noun/infinitive (“Después de llenar…”).
- más tarde literally means “later” and usually refers to a less precise time (“Más tarde iremos al cine”). Luego is more immediate in a narrative.
Why is llenamos ambiguous between present tense “we fill” and preterite “we filled,” and how do you know which one it is here?
The verb form llenamos is orthographically identical in the present indicative (we fill) and the preterite (we filled). Spanish relies on context to disambiguate:
- Contextual clue: antes de salir de la ciudad implies a completed action that happened before leaving the city. That makes llenamos a preterite (“we filled”).
- If it were present (“we fill the tank before leaving”), you’d expect a habitual or general statement, and likely a different time marker.
Why use the preterite here instead of the imperfect?
Spanish uses the preterite for actions viewed as completed, momentary, or occurring at a specific point in time. Here, filling the tank was a single, completed event right before departing. The imperfect (llenábamos) would suggest an ongoing or habitual past action (“we were filling” or “we used to fill”), which doesn’t fit this one-off narrative.
Why isn’t a subject pronoun used? Could I say nosotros llenamos?
Spanish typically drops subject pronouns because the verb ending already indicates the subject.
- llenamos already tells you the subject is “we.”
- You can include nosotros for emphasis or clarity (“Nosotros llenamos el tanque…”), but it’s optional and often omitted in everyday speech.
Why is it antes de salir with an infinitive, instead of a conjugated verb like antes de que saliéramos?
After a preposition—here de in antes de—Spanish requires an infinitive, not a finite verb form. So you say antes de salir (“before leaving”).
- If you did want a clause with a different subject or to use the subjunctive, you’d need antes de que
- subjunctive (e.g. “Antes de que salgamos, revisa el aceite”). But for the same subject and a simple “before doing X,” you stick to antes de
- infinitive.
- subjunctive (e.g. “Antes de que salgamos, revisa el aceite”). But for the same subject and a simple “before doing X,” you stick to antes de
Why are there two des—one in el tanque de gasolina and one in salir de la ciudad? Aren’t they the same?
They’re both the preposition de, but serve different functions:
- el tanque de gasolina → de expresses “type of content” (the tank is of gas).
- salir de la ciudad → de expresses “source/origin” (to leave from the city).
Why do we say el tanque with the definite article, when in English we might drop “the”?
Spanish almost always requires a definite article before a definite, countable noun, even when English often omits it.
- In English you say “fill the tank,” but you’d rarely say “llenar tanque” in Spanish without sounding odd.
- The article el makes the noun specific: the tank you have in the car.
Could luego appear somewhere else in the sentence? How flexible is its position?
Adverbs like luego are fairly mobile, but placement can affect emphasis or formality. Examples:
- Luego llenamos… (standard narrative order: first then-fill-we)
- Llenamos luego el tanque… (less common, might sound poetic or formal)
- Llenamos el tanque de gasolina luego de salir de la ciudad. (changes meaning: “We filled the tank after leaving the city.”)
Be careful: moving luego after de gasolina and before de salir turns it into luego de (“after”), thus altering the time relation in the sentence.