Breakdown of Mi mentora de español da una explicación sencilla y las dudas quedan claras.
Questions & Answers about Mi mentora de español da una explicación sencilla y las dudas quedan claras.
In Latin American Spanish, all of these are possible, but they’re not exact synonyms:
maestra
- Most commonly “teacher,” especially for elementary school.
- Also used more broadly in some countries, but often suggests a school-like context.
profesora
- “Teacher / professor,” often for high school, university, or formal courses.
- Mi profesora de español would usually be the default way to say “my Spanish teacher.”
mentora
- Means “mentor,” someone who guides you, not just formally teaches you.
- It can be a teacher, tutor, coach, or more informal guide.
- Mi mentora de español sounds like:
- someone who personally guides you in Spanish,
- maybe a tutor, language coach, or a more personal relationship than just a classroom teacher.
So yes, mi mentora de español is natural if the relationship is more like a mentor/coach than a regular school teacher. For a typical class teacher, Latin Americans would more often say mi profesora de español.
The pattern mentor(a) de X means “mentor of / in X (subject/area).”
- de español = “of Spanish” (Spanish is the subject she mentors you in).
- If you said mentora en español, it would sound more like:
- she is a mentor in Spanish (language), i.e. the mentoring happens in Spanish, not necessarily about the Spanish language.
- With professions/roles linked to subjects, de is the normal preposition:
- profesor de matemáticas – math teacher
- clase de historia – history class
- libro de biología – biology book
So mi mentora de español means “my Spanish mentor / my mentor for Spanish (as a subject).”
In Spanish, dar (to give) is the standard verb with explicación:
- dar una explicación = “to give an explanation”
- This is a fixed, very natural collocation.
Using hacer here would be odd:
- hace una explicación is not idiomatic in this context.
Some common patterns:
- dar una explicación clara / sencilla / detallada – to give a clear/simple/detailed explanation
- dar una clase – to give a class
- dar un ejemplo – to give an example
You could say something like:
- hace una explicación muy larga – people might understand you, but it sounds non-native.
- More natural alternatives:
- explica de manera sencilla – she explains in a simple way.
- explica muy bien – she explains very well.
But with explicación, the natural verb is dar.
All three are possible but have slightly different flavors:
sencilla
- Very common, sounds natural and positive.
- “Simple, straightforward, not complicated.”
- Often implies clear and easy to follow, without being overly simplistic.
- explicación sencilla = a straightforward explanation.
simple
- Very close to sencilla; often interchangeable:
- una explicación simple y clara
- In some contexts, simple can sound slightly more neutral or even “overly basic,” depending on tone, but here it’s fine.
- Very close to sencilla; often interchangeable:
fácil
- Means “easy,” focusing on how easy it is for the listener.
- una explicación fácil = an explanation that is easy to understand.
- Less common than explicación sencilla or explicación clara.
In your sentence, una explicación sencilla sounds very natural and idiomatic in Latin American Spanish.
Duda literally means “doubt,” but in classroom or learning contexts, it often corresponds to English “questions” in the sense of “things I don’t fully understand.”
So:
- tener dudas = to have questions / to have doubts / to be unsure
- resolver las dudas = to clear up questions
In your sentence:
- las dudas quedan claras roughly means:
- “the questions/confusions become clear”
- “any doubts are cleared up”
English wouldn’t normally say “the doubts are clear,” but Spanish uses dudas this way very naturally in learning contexts.
That’s why we often translate dudas as “questions” or “uncertainties” rather than literal “doubts” in a sentence like this.
Here, quedar is acting like a kind of “result” verb: to end up / to turn out / to become.
- las dudas quedan claras literally: “the doubts remain/end up clear”
- Natural meaning: “the doubts become clear / are cleared up.”
Compare:
- las dudas están claras = “the doubts are clear” (describes a current state; they are clear now)
- las dudas quedan claras = they end up clear as a result of something (here, the explanation).
This quedar + adjetivo pattern is very common:
- quedó claro – it ended up clear / it became clear
- quedamos contentos – we ended up happy / we were left happy
- el tema quedó resuelto – the issue ended up resolved / was resolved
So quedan claras emphasizes the result of the explanation: the doubts are left clear.
Because adjectives in Spanish must agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.
- duda is feminine singular: la duda
- dudas is feminine plural: las dudas
So:
- singular: la duda está clara (the doubt is clear)
- plural: las dudas están claras (the doubts are clear)
In your sentence:
- las dudas → feminine plural
- the adjective claro must match:
- masculine singular: claro
- feminine singular: clara
- masculine plural: claros
- feminine plural: claras
Therefore: las dudas quedan claras is correct.
Spanish often drops possessive adjectives (mi, tu, su) when the owner is obvious from context.
Here, we already know we’re talking about mi mentora de español (my Spanish mentor), so it’s understood that the doubts belong to the speaker (or to the people she’s explaining things to).
- las dudas quedan claras naturally implies “our/the students’ doubts” or “my doubts.”
If you say:
- mis dudas quedan claras – it focuses more explicitly on your personal doubts. That’s correct but not necessary.
In many teaching/learning contexts, speakers simply say las dudas, assuming it’s clear whose doubts they are.
Subject–verb agreement:
- Subject: las dudas → third person plural
- Verb: quedar in the present tense, third person plural → quedan
Conjugation of quedar (present indicative):
- (yo) quedo
- (tú) quedas
- (él/ella/usted) queda
- (nosotros) quedamos
- (ustedes/ellos) quedan
Since las dudas is plural, you need quedan.
Spanish present tense can express both:
An action happening right now:
- Ahora da una explicación – right now she is giving an explanation.
A habitual/general truth:
- Mi mentora de español da una explicación sencilla y las dudas quedan claras.
- This is describing what usually/typically happens.
In your sentence, it’s most natural to read it as habitual:
- “My Spanish mentor gives a simple explanation and doubts are cleared up (whenever she explains things).”
If you wanted to emphasize that it’s happening at this very moment, you could say:
- Ahora mismo me está dando una explicación sencilla y mis dudas están quedando claras.
Grammatically, yes, you can flip the two clauses:
- Mi mentora de español da una explicación sencilla y las dudas quedan claras.
- Las dudas quedan claras y mi mentora de español da una explicación sencilla.
But the original version is more natural because it reflects the logical order:
- She gives an explanation.
- As a result, the doubts become clear.
The reversed order sounds less logical (the result comes before the cause), unless you are using it stylistically or in a specific context. Native speakers would normally keep the original order here.
Explicación has an accent mark on -ción because:
- Words ending in a vowel, n, or s are normally stressed on the second-to-last syllable.
- explicación ends in -n, so by default it would be stressed as ex-pli-CA-cion.
- But the actual stress is on the last syllable: ex-pli-ca-CIÓN.
- The written accent (ó) signals this irregular stress.
Main stress in the sentence:
- Mi menTOra de esPAñol DA una expli-ca-CIÓN senCIlla y las DUDas queDAN CLAras.
Only explicación needs a written accent for correct spelling; the other words follow normal stress rules.