El chófer llegó pronto.

El is the masculine singular definite article, meaning the.

It is used because chófer is a singular masculine noun, and the sentence is talking about a specific driver: the driver.

In Spanish, articles are often used in places where English might or might not use them. Here, el chófer is the subject of the sentence, so the article is completely normal.

Chófer means driver or chauffeur.

In Spain, conductor is often the more general word for driver, especially for someone driving a vehicle in general. Chófer can sound a bit more like:

• a professional driver
• a hired driver
• a chauffeur

So chófer is correct, but it may suggest a slightly more specific kind of driver than the everyday English word driver sometimes does.

The accent mark shows where the stress goes: CHÓ-fer.

Without the accent, Spanish stress rules would make you expect the stress somewhere else. Since chófer ends in -r, the natural stress would normally be on the last syllable, so the written accent is needed to show that the stress is actually on the first syllable.

So:

• chófer = stress on chó
• pronunciation: roughly CHO-fer

Llegó is the preterite form of llegar for he/she/it.

It is used for a completed action in the past:

• llega = arrives / is arriving
• llegaba = was arriving / used to arrive
• llegó = arrived

So El chófer llegó pronto presents the arrival as a finished event.

The accent mark shows that the stress is on the last syllable: lle-GÓ.

It also helps distinguish it from llego, which would be the I arrive form in the present:

• llego = I arrive
• llegó = he/she arrived

So the accent is doing real grammatical work here.

A simple learner-friendly pronunciation is:

ye-GÓ

A few useful points:

• ll in much of modern Spain is pronounced like y in yes
• g before o is a hard g
• the stress is on the last syllable because of the accent mark

So llegó is not pronounced like English leg-go.

Depending on the region, the ll sound can vary a bit, but ye-GÓ is a good approximation for most learners.

Here, pronto is an adverb.

It modifies the verb llegó, telling us how/when the driver arrived.

So in this sentence:

• llegó = the action
• pronto = describes that action

Even though pronto can also be an adjective in other contexts, here it is functioning adverbially.

In this sentence, pronto is understood as early or sooner than expected.

That is because it is used with a past arrival:

• El chófer llegó pronto = The driver arrived early

In other contexts, pronto can mean soon:

• Volveré pronto = I’ll be back soon

So the exact translation depends on context.

Yes, El chófer llegó temprano is also possible.

The difference is roughly this:

• temprano = early, especially with time of day
• pronto = early / sooner than expected / soon, depending on context

In this sentence, both can work, but pronto can carry a sense of earlier than expected, not just at an early hour.

Putting pronto at the end is the most neutral and natural word order here:

El chófer llegó pronto.

Spanish word order is fairly flexible, though. You could also hear:

• El chófer pronto llegó — possible, but less neutral and more literary or marked
• Pronto llegó el chófer — possible, with a different emphasis
• Llegó pronto el chófer — possible, often with focus on the arrival first

So the original sentence uses the most straightforward order.

Because el chófer is the subject, not a direct object.

The personal a is used before a specific human direct object, for example:

• Veo al chófer = I see the driver

But here:

• El chófer is the one doing the action
• llegó is the verb

So no personal a is needed.

Yes, if the context already makes it clear who you mean.

Spanish often omits subjects when they are understood:

• Llegó pronto. = He/She arrived early.

But in the full sentence, el chófer is included for clarity or emphasis.

So both are possible:

• El chófer llegó pronto. — explicit subject
• Llegó pronto. — subject omitted because it is understood