Word
La biblioteca central está cerrada hoy.
Meaning
The central library is closed today.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Lesson
Breakdown of La biblioteca central está cerrada hoy.
estar
to be
hoy
today
cerrado
closed
la biblioteca
the library
Questions & Answers about La biblioteca central está cerrada hoy.
Why do we use está instead of es in this sentence?
Spanish has two verbs for “to be”: ser and estar. We choose está (from estar) because we’re describing a temporary state or condition of the library (it’s closed today), not an inherent or permanent characteristic. If you said es cerrada, it would sound like “it is closed” as a defining trait, which isn’t natural here.
What role does cerrada play in está cerrada?
Cerrada is the past participle of cerrar used as an adjective. In está cerrada, it describes the current state (“closed”) of the library, rather than functioning as a full verb phrase like “it closes.”
Why is cerrada in the feminine form?
Adjectives in Spanish must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. Since biblioteca is feminine singular, cerrada also takes the feminine singular ending -a.
Why does the adjective central come after biblioteca instead of before?