Breakdown of El autobús tiene sesenta asientos.
Questions & Answers about El autobús tiene sesenta asientos.
Why is it el autobús and not un autobús?
Why is autobús masculine?
Why does autobús have an accent mark?
The accent mark in autobús shows where the stress goes: au-to-BÚS.
Without the accent mark, a Spanish speaker would expect the stress to fall differently because the word ends in s. The written accent tells you that the last syllable is stressed.
So the pronunciation is roughly:
au-to-BOOS
with the stress on the last syllable.
Is autobús the only word for bus in Latin America?
No. Autobús is correct and widely understood, but different countries use different words, such as:
- bus
- camión
- colectivo
- guagua
The exact word depends on the country or region. Autobús is a safe, standard choice for learners.
Why is it tiene?
Does tener only mean possession, like owning something?
No. Tener often means to have, but not only in the sense of ownership.
In this sentence, it means that the bus has or contains sixty seats. Spanish uses tener very naturally for features, parts, and characteristics:
- La casa tiene tres cuartos. = The house has three rooms.
- El coche tiene cuatro puertas. = The car has four doors.
So here, tiene describes what the bus includes.
Why is sesenta not changing form?
Sesenta is a cardinal number, and numbers like this usually do not change for gender or number.
So you say:
- sesenta asientos
- sesenta mesas
- sesenta libros
The word sesenta stays the same.
A useful detail: some numbers do change in certain situations, especially uno and some hundreds:
- un asiento
- una mesa
- doscientos libros
- doscientas sillas
But sesenta always stays sesenta.
Why is there no de between sesenta and asientos?
Because in Spanish, a number usually goes directly before the noun:
- sesenta asientos
- tres puertas
- veinte estudiantes
You do not normally say sesenta de asientos.
Spanish uses de in other quantity expressions, but not in a basic number + noun structure like this one.
Why is asientos plural?
Because the sentence says sixty seats, not one seat.
The singular form is asiento. The plural form is asientos.
So:
- un asiento = one seat
- sesenta asientos = sixty seats
What exactly does asiento mean?
Why is the word order tiene sesenta asientos?
This is the normal Spanish word order here:
subject + verb + number + noun
So:
- El autobús = subject
- tiene = verb
- sesenta asientos = object/complement
Spanish and English are very similar in this kind of sentence:
- The bus has sixty seats.
- El autobús tiene sesenta asientos.
You could change the word order in Spanish in some contexts, but this version is the most neutral and natural.
How would a Latin American speaker usually pronounce the whole sentence?
A simple approximation is:
el au-to-BOOS TYE-ne se-SEN-ta a-SYEN-tos
A few helpful pronunciation notes:
- b in autobús is softer than a strong English b
- tiene sounds like TYE-ne
- s is normally pronounced clearly in most Latin American accents
- Spanish vowels are short and consistent:
- a as in father
- e as in bet
- i as in machine
- o as in told but shorter
- u as in rule
The main stress points are:
- autobús → last syllable
- sesenta → middle syllable
- asientos → middle syllable
Could I leave out el and just say Autobús tiene sesenta asientos?
Normally, no. In standard Spanish, a singular countable noun usually needs an article or another determiner.
So these are natural:
- El autobús tiene sesenta asientos.
- Un autobús tiene sesenta asientos.
- Este autobús tiene sesenta asientos.
But Autobús tiene sesenta asientos sounds incomplete in normal Spanish.
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