Breakdown of Mis amigos son muy festivaleros y siempre van a la plaza cuando hay música.
Questions & Answers about Mis amigos son muy festivaleros y siempre van a la plaza cuando hay música.
Festivalero literally comes from festival + -ero, a suffix that often means “related to / fond of / involved with.”
In this sentence, muy festivaleros means something like:
- big festival-goers
- really into festivals / live music events
- people who love going to concerts, street parties, etc.
Usage:
- It’s well understood across the Spanish-speaking world.
- It’s especially common in Spain.
- In many parts of Latin America, people might more often say fiesteros, rumberos, or parranderos, depending on the country, but festivaleros is still understandable and natural in many contexts (especially when talking specifically about music festivals).
The choice between ser and estar is about whether you’re describing:
- a general, more permanent characteristic → use ser
- a temporary state or condition → use estar
Here, son muy festivaleros describes a personality trait or usual behavior: your friends in general are the kind of people who love festivals. That’s seen as part of who they are, so Spanish uses ser:
- Mis amigos son muy festivaleros.
= My friends are (by nature) really into festivals.
If you said están festivaleros (rare and a bit odd), it would sound like they’re just right now in a “party mood,” not their usual selves. That’s not the idea here.
In Spanish:
- muy = very
Used before adjectives and adverbs.- muy alto, muy feliz, muy rápido
- mucho / mucha / muchos / muchas = a lot / many / much
Used with verbs and nouns.- trabaja mucho, mucho dinero, muchas personas
Since festivaleros is an adjective describing amigos, you must use muy:
- ✅ son muy festivaleros = they are very festival-going
- ❌ son mucho festivaleros (incorrect)
Adjectives in Spanish must agree with the noun in gender and number.
- amigos is masculine plural, so:
- mis amigos son festivaleros
- If it were a group of only women:
- mis amigas son festivaleras
If the group is mixed (men + women), Spanish grammar normally defaults to masculine plural:
- mis amigos son muy festivaleros
can mean “my (mixed) group of friends are very festival-loving.”
Yes, you can say:
- Mis amigos son muy fiesteros.
fiestero is very common in Latin America and means someone who:
- loves parties, going out, nightlife, etc.
Nuance:
- festivalero: often evokes festivals (music festivals, street festivals, concerts).
- fiestero: more general “party animal”/loves to party.
Depending on context and country, fiesteros might sound more natural than festivaleros if you simply mean they like going out and partying.
In Spanish:
- ir a = to go to (movement + destination)
- van a la plaza = they go to the square
- estar en = to be in/at (location, no movement)
- están en la plaza = they are in the square
So:
- siempre van a la plaza
tells us they go there (they move from somewhere else to the plaza). - siempre están en la plaza
would mean they are always there, already in the plaza, which is a different idea.
That’s why a la plaza is correct with van.
In this sentence, plaza most naturally means a town square / main public square, often in the center of the city or town.
It’s typically:
- an open public space
- people gather there
- there may be benches, a fountain, a church, a government building, etc.
- often used for concerts, markets, public events
In some countries, plaza can also mean a shopping mall (for example, plaza comercial), but when someone says just la plaza in the context of music in a town, it almost always means the central square / plaza.
Yes. Spanish word order is flexible for adverbs like siempre. All of these are grammatically correct:
- Siempre van a la plaza cuando hay música.
- Van siempre a la plaza cuando hay música.
- Van a la plaza siempre que hay música. (slightly different structure)
The most neutral and common version is probably the original:
- Siempre van a la plaza cuando hay música.
Changing the position of siempre can add a little emphasis or style, but the meaning stays basically the same.
In Spanish, subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, ella, nosotros, ellos, etc.) are usually omitted because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.
- van clearly tells us the subject is ellos / ellas / ustedes from the conjugation.
So:
- (Ellos) siempre van a la plaza…
→ Ellos is optional here.
You’d include ellos mainly for emphasis or contrast:
- Ellos siempre van a la plaza, pero nosotros casi nunca vamos.
They always go to the square, but we almost never go.
Both are possible, but they express different ideas:
cuando hay música (indicative hay)
→ Used for habitual, factual situations in the present or general time.- “Whenever / every time there is music, they go.”
cuando haya música (subjunctive haya)
→ Used for future or hypothetical situations, often not yet realized.- “When(ever) there is music (in the future / if that happens), they will go.”
In this sentence, the speaker is talking about a regular habit that already happens in real life, so hay (indicative) is the natural choice:
- Mis amigos siempre van a la plaza cuando hay música.
= As a rule, whenever there is music, they go.
In Spanish, mass/uncountable nouns used in a general sense often appear without an article.
Here, música is like English “music” in general:
- cuando hay música
= when there is (any) music
If you say la música, it tends to refer to specific or already known music:
- cuando hay la música que les gusta
= when there is the music they like
But in the original sentence, we’re talking about any live music in the plaza, so no article is most natural: música.
In almost all of Latin America:
- z is pronounced like s in see.
- So plaza sounds like PLAH-sa (roughly).
In much of Spain (especially central and northern Spain):
- z is pronounced like “th” in think.
- There it would sound more like PLAH-tha.
Since you asked about Latin American Spanish, think of plaza as PLAH-sa.