Question 1

Why is del written as one word, and what does it mean?

Accepted Answer

del is a contraction of de + el, meaning “of the.” In Spanish, whenever de (of/from) is followed by the masculine singular article el, you fuse them into del. So del zoológico literally means “of the zoo.”

Question 2

Why is there an el before perezoso, since in English we might say just “sloths sleep all day”?

Accepted Answer

Spanish generally requires the definite article before nouns, even for general statements. El perezoso means “the sloth” (in general). In English we drop the article in generalizations (“Sloths sleep…”), but in Spanish you keep it.

Question 3

What does perezoso mean, and why can it mean both “sloth” and “lazy”?

Accepted Answer

perezoso is an adjective meaning “lazy.” It’s also the common name for the animal “sloth” because of its slow, lazy nature. Context tells you which meaning: here it names the animal.

Question 4

How is duerme formed, and why do we use the simple present tense here?

Accepted Answer

duerme is the third-person singular present indicative of dormir (to sleep). In Spanish, the simple present often describes habitual actions: “The zoo sloth sleeps almost all day” (i.e., it habitually does so).

Question 5

Could we say está durmiendo instead of duerme to mean “is sleeping”? What changes?

Accepted Answer

- está durmiendo (present progressive) stresses the action is happening right now—“is sleeping.”  
- duerme (simple present) can mean both “sleeps” (habitually) or “is sleeping” in everyday speech. In this sentence, duerme highlights the sloth’s usual behavior. Saying está durmiendo casi todo el día would sound odd (as if you’re commenting on just today).

Question 6

What’s the difference between casi todo el día and casi todos los días?

Accepted Answer

- casi todo el día = “almost the entire day” (refers to one day’s duration).  
- casi todos los días = “almost every day” (refers to frequency across days).  
Here we talk about the span of a single day, so we use todo el día.

Question 7

Why is día singular in todo el día, and why does it have an accent?

Accepted Answer

- It’s singular because todo el + singular noun means “the whole [singular noun],” i.e., one full day.  
- día has an accent on the “í” to mark stress: although it ends in a vowel (which normally stresses the penultimate syllable), día is an exception and must show that the stress falls on the first syllable.

Question 8

Why does zoológico have an accent mark?

Accepted Answer

zoológico is stressed on the antepenultimate syllable (zo-o-LÓ-gi-co). Spanish orthography requires an accent on words whose stress falls on the third-to-last syllable (proparoxytones). Without the accent it would be mispronounced.

El perezoso del zoológico duerme casi todo el día.

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