Breakdown of Cuando llegamos a la cabaña, todos nos ponemos a limpiar la cocina enseguida.
Questions & Answers about Cuando llegamos a la cabaña, todos nos ponemos a limpiar la cocina enseguida.
Spanish often uses the present tense to talk about:
- Habitual actions (things that happen regularly)
- Narration (telling a story in a vivid, “right now” way)
So Cuando llegamos a la cabaña… can mean:
- Whenever we arrive at the cabin… (habit)
- Or, in a story: When we arrive at the cabin… (narrative present)
If you really want plain past narration, you’d usually see:
- Cuando llegamos a la cabaña, todos nos pusimos a limpiar…
“When we arrived at the cabin, we all started to clean…”
So the present here gives either a habitual sense or a vivid “now” narration instead of a strictly past description.
Both are correct, but they mean different things:
Cuando llegamos a la cabaña…
Uses the indicative (llegamos). It talks about something seen as real, habitual, or clearly scheduled.
→ “When(ever) we arrive at the cabin…”Cuando lleguemos a la cabaña…
Uses the subjunctive (lleguemos). It’s usually about the future, something that has not happened yet and is viewed as a condition.
→ “When we get to the cabin…” (in the future)
Examples:
Cuando llegamos a la cabaña, siempre limpiamos la cocina.
“Whenever we arrive at the cabin, we always clean the kitchen.”Cuando lleguemos a la cabaña, limpiamos la cocina.
“When we get to the cabin, we’ll clean the kitchen.” (plan about the future)
With places, llegar normally uses the preposition a:
- llegar a la cabaña – to arrive at the cabin
- llegar a la casa – to arrive at the house
- llegar a México – to arrive in Mexico
You must have the a before the place.
Saying “llegar la cabaña” is incorrect in standard Spanish.
Compare:
- Llegamos a la cabaña a las seis.
“We arrive at the cabin at six.”
You need nos because ponerse a + infinitive is a reflexive construction that means “to start doing something / to get to doing something.”
- ponerse a limpiar – to start cleaning
- me pongo a limpiar – I start cleaning
- nos ponemos a limpiar – we start cleaning
Without nos, ponemos a limpiar is wrong here.
Poner (without “se”) usually means “to put / to place,” not “to start.”
So:
- Todos nos ponemos a limpiar la cocina. ✅
“We all start cleaning the kitchen.” - Todos ponemos a limpiar la cocina. ❌ (ungrammatical)
poner (non‑reflexive) → usually “to put / to place”
- Pongo el vaso en la mesa. – I put the glass on the table.
ponerse (reflexive) has several meanings, including:
- To put something on oneself:
- Me pongo la chaqueta. – I put on my jacket.
- To become / to get (emotion/state):
- Me pongo nervioso. – I get nervous.
- ponerse a + infinitive → to start doing something:
- Nos ponemos a limpiar. – We start cleaning.
- To put something on oneself:
In your sentence, it’s meaning (3): ponerse a + verb = start doing that action.
Two things here:
You normally need “a” after empezar when followed by an infinitive:
- empezar a limpiar – to start cleaning
So “empezamos limpiar” should be “empezamos a limpiar.”
Meaning / nuance:
- empezar a limpiar – to begin cleaning (neutral “start”)
- ponerse a limpiar – to start cleaning, often with a nuance of
“we get down to cleaning / we set ourselves to cleaning,” sometimes more spontaneous or collective.
In many cases you can use either:
- Todos empezamos a limpiar la cocina enseguida.
- Todos nos ponemos a limpiar la cocina enseguida.
Both are fine; ponerse a can sound a bit more like a sudden, decided action.
Both word orders are possible:
- Todos nos ponemos a limpiar…
- Nos ponemos todos a limpiar…
The difference is subtle:
- Todos nos ponemos… slightly emphasizes “all of us” as a group.
- Nos ponemos todos… slightly emphasizes the action and then clarifies it’s all of us.
In everyday speech, todos nos ponemos is very common and sounds natural. Todos is often placed before the verb or before the subject/pronoun it modifies.
Spanish uses definite articles much more than English, especially with specific places and nouns:
- la cabaña – the cabin
- la cocina – the kitchen
In your sentence, we’re talking about a specific cabin and a specific kitchen, so Spanish needs the definite article.
You cannot drop them here:
- Limpiar la cocina. ✅ (correct)
- Limpiar cocina. ❌ (wrong in this context)
You can drop the article in some idiomatic expressions (e.g., estar en casa), but not in this sentence.
Enseguida means “right away / immediately.” It’s an adverb, and it’s fine at the end:
- …todos nos ponemos a limpiar la cocina enseguida.
It can also appear in other positions, for example:
- Enseguida todos nos ponemos a limpiar la cocina.
- Todos nos ponemos enseguida a limpiar la cocina.
Spanish adverbs like this are fairly flexible in position.
Putting enseguida at the end is very natural and common.
Literally, enseguida comes from “en seguida” → “in (the) next (moment),” i.e., right after / immediately.
Common synonyms (used in much of Latin America):
- inmediatamente
- de inmediato
- al instante
Some regional, more colloquial ones:
- al tiro (very common in Chile; also used elsewhere in the Southern Cone)
- luego luego (Mexico; “immediately,” not “later”)
But enseguida is neutral and widely understood across Latin America.
In the present tense as written:
- Cuando llegamos a la cabaña, todos nos ponemos a limpiar la cocina enseguida.
it most naturally suggests a habitual action:
- “Whenever we arrive at the cabin, we all start cleaning the kitchen right away.”
It could also be narrative present in a story, but with cuando + present and no extra context, learners are usually taught to read it as habitual.
Yes. Both are correct, with slightly different structure:
Cuando llegamos a la cabaña, todos nos ponemos a limpiar la cocina enseguida.
“When we arrive at the cabin, we all start cleaning the kitchen right away.”Al llegar a la cabaña, todos nos ponemos a limpiar la cocina enseguida.
Literally: “Upon arriving at the cabin, we all start…”
Al + infinitive often means “upon / when (doing something)” and is common in written and spoken Spanish. The meaning here is practically the same.