Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): La comunidad quiere restaurar el puente viejo. - The community wants to restore the old bridge.

Even though comunidad doesn’t end in -a, many nouns ending in -dad (like ciudad, universidad, edad) are feminine, so they use la / una and take feminine adjectives if needed.

Why is it quiere and not quieren? In English we say “the community want,” almost like a plural idea.

In Spanish, la comunidad is grammatically singular, so the verb must also be singular: quiere.

La comunidad quiere… = The community wants… (singular verb)
Las comunidades quieren… = The communities want… (plural verb)

Even if you think of a community as many people, Spanish agrees the verb with the grammatical form (singular noun comunidad), not the idea of “many individuals.”

What is the infinitive of quiere, and how is it conjugated?

The infinitive is querer (to want / to love).

Present tense (Latin American usage, without vosotros):

yo quiero – I want
tú quieres – you (informal, singular) want
usted quiere – you (formal, singular) want
él / ella quiere – he / she wants
nosotros / nosotras queremos – we want
ustedes quieren – you (plural) want
ellos / ellas quieren – they want

In the sentence, quiere is third person singular, matching la comunidad.

Why is it quiere restaurar and not quiere a restaurar or quiere de restaurar?

In Spanish, certain verbs are followed directly by an infinitive without a preposition. Querer is one of them:

Querer + infinitive = to want to do something
- Quiero comer. – I want to eat.
- Ella quiere viajar. – She wants to travel.
- La comunidad quiere restaurar… – The community wants to restore…

Adding a preposition (a, de, etc.) here would be incorrect: ✗ quiere a restaurar is wrong.

Why restaurar and not reparar, arreglar, or reconstruir?

All of these verbs involve fixing something, but they have different nuances:

restaurar – to restore, usually to return something (often old or damaged) to its original or former condition, often with care and respect. Common for bridges, buildings, art, monuments.
reparar – to repair, fix something that’s broken so it works again (more technical/mechanical).
arreglar – to fix, to sort out, to “get it in order”; more general and colloquial.
reconstruir – to rebuild, typically when something is destroyed or almost completely gone.

So restaurar el puente viejo suggests they want to restore the old bridge, likely preserving or improving it, not totally rebuilding it from scratch.

Is el puente viejo the direct object in this sentence?

Yes.

quiere = verb
restaurar = infinitive (what they want to do)
el puente viejo = direct object of restaurar (what they want to restore)

You could also use a direct object pronoun:

La comunidad quiere restaurarlo. – The community wants to restore it.
(lo refers back to el puente viejo, masculine singular.)

Why is it el puente viejo and not la puente vieja?

Puente is a masculine noun in Spanish, so it takes el and masculine adjective forms:

el puente – the bridge
un puente – a bridge
el puente viejo – the old bridge

The fact that it ends in -e doesn’t determine gender. You just have to learn that puente is masculine. That’s why the adjective is viejo (masculine), not vieja (feminine).

Why el puente (the bridge) and not un puente (a bridge)?

Using el instead of un implies that the speaker and listener already know which specific bridge is meant:

el puente viejo – the old bridge (a particular, known bridge)
un puente viejo – an old bridge (any old bridge, not specified which)

Here, la comunidad quiere restaurar el puente viejo suggests there is a known old bridge in that community that they want to restore.

Why is viejo after puente? Can it go before the noun?

In Spanish, most descriptive adjectives usually go after the noun:

el puente viejo – the old bridge

You can put viejo before the noun, but the meaning changes slightly:

el viejo puente – often implies the old/long-standing / well-known / “old” in the sense of long time bridge, or sometimes a bit more emotional or literary (like “that old bridge of ours”).
el puente viejo – more neutral: the bridge is old in age.

So both are grammatically correct, but puente viejo describes age more neutrally, while viejo puente can sound more like “that old, long-standing bridge” in a more emotional or familiar way.

Why is viejo masculine and not feminine (vieja) if comunidad is feminine?

Adjectives agree with the noun they describe, not with other nouns in the sentence.

Here, viejo describes puente, not comunidad:

la comunidad (feminine noun)
el puente viejo (masculine noun + masculine adjective)

So:

la comunidad grande – the big community (feminine: comunidad + grande)
el puente viejo – the old bridge (masculine: puente + viejo)

In the sentence, viejo must match puente (masculine), so it is viejo, not vieja.

What’s the stress and pronunciation of the words in this sentence?

Key points:

La – [la], short, clear a as in “father.”
comunidad – co-mu-ni-DAD. Stress on the last syllable -dad.
quiere – QUIE-re. Sounds like “kyeh-re”.
- qui here sounds like “kee,” but with the e it glides: kye.
restaurar – res-tau-RAR. Stress on the last syllable -rar.
- au is one diphthong, similar to “ow” in “cow,” but shorter.
el – [el], like “ell.”
puente – PUEN-te. Stress on puen.
- ue is like “we” in “wet” but as one sound: “pwen-te.”
viejo – VIE-jo. Stress on vie, sounds like “bye-eh-ho” but said smoothly: “byeho.”
- In Latin America, j is like an English h but stronger in the throat.

There are no silent letters here except that u in que / qui sequences is often silent, but in quie- it helps form the kye sound.

Could this sentence also be said with the subjunctive, like La comunidad quiere que se restaure el puente viejo? What’s the difference?

Yes, that’s another valid structure, and it slightly changes the focus:

La comunidad quiere restaurar el puente viejo.
– The community wants to restore the old bridge.
– The subject of restaurar is la comunidad itself. They want to do it (or “have it done” in a looser sense).
La comunidad quiere que se restaure el puente viejo.
– Literally: The community wants that the old bridge be restored.
– Uses que + subjunctive (se restaure).
– Focus on the action happening, not necessarily that the community itself will do the work. They want it to get restored (by someone).

Both are natural in Latin American Spanish; the second is more impersonal and emphasizes the bridge being restored rather than the community doing the action.

Can we say La comunidad está queriendo restaurar el puente viejo in Spanish?

It’s grammatically possible but very uncommon and usually unnecessary.

In Spanish, verbs like querer (to want) are normally not used in the progressive (estar + gerundio) because “wanting” is a mental state, not an action in progress.

You usually just say:

La comunidad quiere restaurar el puente viejo.

Using está queriendo can sound odd or overly literal from English (“is wanting”). It’s only used in very special contexts, often to emphasize a change of intention, and even then it’s rare.