Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): El viento mueve ligeramente las cortinas en la sala. - The wind slightly moves the curtains in the living room.

In Spanish, every noun has a grammatical gender (masculine or feminine), and viento happens to be masculine, so it takes the article el: el viento.

There’s no logical reason it’s masculine; it’s just part of the word’s dictionary entry. A few useful points:

Most nouns ending in -o are masculine (el viento, el libro, el carro), so viento fits that pattern.
You always need to memorize the noun with its article: el viento, la cortina, el perro, la mesa.
Wind is it in English, but in Spanish you treat viento as he grammatically (because it’s masculine). So you would say:
- El viento mueve las cortinas. Él (el viento) las mueve.
  (He/it moves them.)

Why is it mueve and not mueven or mover? What form of the verb is this?

Mueve comes from the verb mover (to move). In the sentence:

El viento mueve ligeramente las cortinas en la sala.

The subject is el viento (singular).
The verb must agree with that singular subject.
Mueve is 3rd person singular, present indicative:
- yo muevo – I move
- tú mueves – you move
- él / ella / usted mueve – he / she / you (formal) move
- nosotros movemos – we move
- ellos / ustedes mueven – they / you all move

So we use mueve because the subject is él (referring to el viento).
Mueven would be used with a plural subject, for example:

Los vientos mueven las cortinas. – The winds move the curtains.

Mover is the infinitive form, used like “to move” in English, not as a main conjugated verb.

Why is the adverb ligeramente placed after mueve? Could I say ligeramente mueve or mueve las cortinas ligeramente?

In Spanish, adverbs like ligeramente (slightly, lightly) are flexible in position. All of these are grammatically correct:

El viento mueve ligeramente las cortinas.
El viento mueve las cortinas ligeramente.
El viento ligeramente mueve las cortinas. (less common, but possible)

The most neutral and natural in everyday speech are the first two, especially:

El viento mueve ligeramente las cortinas.
El viento mueve las cortinas ligeramente.

The choice is mostly about rhythm and emphasis:

mueve ligeramente las cortinas
→ Slight emphasis on how it moves them.
mueve las cortinas ligeramente
→ Slight emphasis on the curtains first, then describing how.

Putting ligeramente right before the verb (ligeramente mueve) is more literary or stylistic and is not the typical everyday order.

What exactly does ligeramente mean here? Could I use suavemente instead?

Ligeramente literally comes from ligero (light) and usually means:

slightly
lightly
a little

In this context, mueve ligeramente las cortinas suggests:

The movement is not strong.
It’s delicate, subtle.

Suavemente comes from suave (soft, gentle) and focuses more on gentleness or smoothness.

You could say:

El viento mueve suavemente las cortinas.

That would be perfectly natural. The nuance:

ligeramente – more about the degree of movement: not much, just a little.
suavemente – more about the quality of the movement: gentle, soft.

In many contexts (like this one), both are fine and very close in meaning.

Why is it las cortinas and not just cortinas without an article, or unas cortinas?

Spanish uses articles (definite and indefinite) more than English does.

las cortinas = the curtains (specific or known curtains)
unas cortinas = some curtains (not specified which ones)
cortinas (with no article) is possible, but usually in very specific structures (e.g., headlines, labels, or some descriptive phrases) and sounds incomplete in a normal sentence like this.

In a typical descriptive sentence about a room, we usually assume the curtains are the ones that belong to that room, already known from context, so las cortinas is natural:

El viento mueve ligeramente las cortinas en la sala.
→ The wind is moving the curtains (the ones in that room).

If you say unas cortinas, it would feel like you’re introducing the idea of “some random curtains”:

El viento mueve ligeramente unas cortinas en la sala.
→ The wind is moving some curtains in the room. (not necessarily known which)

For describing a specific room (as in a story or description of a house), las cortinas is the normal choice.

What does en la sala mean exactly? Could I say en el salón or en la sala de estar in Latin America?

En la sala literally means in the living room.

In Latin America:

la sala commonly means the living room.
la sala de estar is also understood and can mean living/family room, but sounds a bit more formal or specific.
el salón can be:
- a large room, hall, or event room (party hall, classroom, etc.)
- in some places it can also be understood as a living room, but in much of Latin America it more often suggests something like a big room or hall.

In many Latin American countries, if you’re talking about a normal house:

la sala = the usual natural word for living room.

So:

El viento mueve ligeramente las cortinas en la sala.
→ sounds perfectly natural for Latin American Spanish.

You could also say en la sala de estar if you want to be more specific, but en la sala is enough and very common.

Why use El viento mueve las cortinas instead of Las cortinas se mueven? Are both correct?

Both are correct, but they focus on slightly different things.

El viento mueve ligeramente las cortinas.
- Structure: Subject (agent) + verb + object
- Focus: what the wind is doing.
- Agent is explicit: the wind is actively moving the curtains.
Las cortinas se mueven ligeramente (por el viento).
- Structure: Subject (the thing affected) + reflexive/“middle” construction
- Focus: what the curtains are doing.
- Agent (the wind) can be left out if it’s obvious:
  - Las cortinas se mueven ligeramente. (The curtains are moving slightly.)

In Spanish, the “se” construction is very common to describe what happens to things by themselves or because of external forces, without emphasizing the agent:

La puerta se abre. – The door opens (it opens / is opening).
Las hojas se caen. – The leaves fall (down).

So:

If you want to emphasize the wind: use El viento mueve…
If you want to emphasize the curtains: use Las cortinas se mueven…

In English we say “it” for wind. Why is there no “it” in El viento mueve ligeramente las cortinas?

Spanish doesn’t use a separate subject pronoun for it the way English does.

The subject is directly expressed by the noun or understood from the verb ending:

El viento mueve ligeramente las cortinas.
- Subject: el viento (explicit).
If you already mentioned the wind, you could later just say:
- Mueve ligeramente las cortinas.
  (The verb ending -e tells you the subject is él / ella / usted; context tells you it’s the wind.)

Spanish pronouns:

él = he / it (for masculine nouns like el viento)
ella = she / it (for feminine nouns like la cortina)

But often Spanish just leaves out the pronoun, because verb endings already show person and number. You don’t need a placeholder “it.”

So there’s no separate word that works exactly like the English “it.”

Why is it en la sala and not a la sala or por la sala?

The preposition en usually means in, on, or at (location). In this sentence, it marks where the curtains are:

en la sala = in the living room

The other prepositions change the meaning:

a la sala
- Usually implies movement toward the room:
- Voy a la sala. – I’m going to the living room.
- El viento entra a la sala. – The wind comes into the living room.
por la sala
- Often means through / around / all over the room:
- El viento corre por la sala. – The wind runs through the living room.
- Camina por la sala. – Walk around in the living room.

Since the sentence describes where the curtains are and where they are being moved, en la sala (in the room) is the correct preposition.

How do you pronounce viento in Latin American Spanish? Is the v like “v” in English?

In almost all Spanish varieties (including Latin America), b and v are pronounced the same.

viento is pronounced approximately [byen-toh], not like an English “vee-ento.”
The v sound is more like a soft b, especially between sounds:
- At the start of a phrase: a bit closer to b.
- Between vowels or sounds: even softer, almost like a gentle, voiced b.

So:

viento ≈ BYEN-toh
el viento mueve ≈ el BYEN-toh MWEH-beh (with the v/b in mueve also pronounced like a soft b)

In careful phonetic terms, it’s a bilabial sound (lips together), not a labiodental sound (lip + teeth) like English “v.”