Finalmente encontramos la llave.

Because encontramos can mean two different things:

• present tense: we find
• preterite: we found

For nosotros, those two forms look identical. So you have to rely on context.

In Finalmente encontramos la llave, the context suggests a completed action, so it is understood as the preterite: we found.

Spanish often leaves out subject pronouns because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

• encontramos already tells you the subject is we
• so nosotros is optional

You could say Finalmente nosotros encontramos la llave, but it would usually sound more emphatic, as if you were contrasting we with someone else.

Finalmente means finally / in the end. It marks the result at the end of a process.

In everyday speech, many Spaniards would more naturally say por fin in this kind of sentence:

• Por fin encontramos la llave

That often sounds more emotional or conversational, especially after a frustrating search.

Finalmente is perfectly correct, but it can sound a little more neutral, formal, or narrative depending on context.

Yes. Spanish word order is flexible.

You can say:

• Finalmente encontramos la llave
• Encontramos finalmente la llave

Both are grammatical. Putting finalmente at the beginning is very common when you want to frame the whole sentence as the final outcome.

In practice, sentence-initial position often sounds more natural and clearer here.

Because la means the, so it refers to a specific key that both speaker and listener have in mind.

• la llave = the key
• una llave = a key

If you had not identified the key yet, una llave might be possible in a different context. But in this sentence, the idea is that they finally found the specific key they were looking for.

Nouns in Spanish have grammatical gender, and llave is simply a feminine noun:

• la llave
• una llave

Its gender is something you usually have to learn together with the noun. The ending -e does not automatically tell you whether a noun is masculine or feminine, so llave has to be memorized as feminine.

In most of Spain, llave is pronounced roughly like YAH-beh.

A few helpful points:

• ll is usually pronounced like the y in yes
• a is a clear open vowel, like a in father
• v in Spanish is not pronounced like a strong English v; it sounds closer to a soft b
• the stress is on the first syllable: LLA-ve

So a simple learner-friendly approximation is YAH-beh.

Because la llave is a thing, not a person.

Spanish uses the personal a mainly before specific human direct objects, and sometimes pets or personified animals. For example:

• Veo a María
• Buscamos al profesor

But with objects or things, you normally do not use a:

• Encontramos la llave
• Perdí el libro

So no a is needed here.

Yes, absolutely.

In many parts of Spain, the present perfect is very common for recent past actions that still feel connected to the present:

• Hemos encontrado la llave = We have found the key

So:

• Finalmente encontramos la llave
• Finalmente hemos encontrado la llave

Both are possible, but they can feel slightly different:

• encontramos often sounds like a finished event in a story or narrative
• hemos encontrado often feels more connected to the current moment, especially in Spain

Because all three words follow normal Spanish stress rules:

• finalmente
• encontramos
• llave

Spanish usually does not write an accent mark if the word follows the regular stress pattern.

For example:

• llave ends in a vowel, so it is normally stressed on the next-to-last syllable: LLA-ve
• encontramos ends in s, so it is also normally stressed on the next-to-last syllable: en-con-TRA-mos
• finalmente also follows regular stress

So no written accents are needed.