Revisamos el dispensador de agua caliente.

to check

Breakdown of Revisamos el dispensador de agua caliente.

• el dispensador de agua caliente: the hot-water dispenser

Questions & Answers about Revisamos el dispensador de agua caliente.

Does revisar here mean to revise, like in English?

Not usually. In this sentence, revisar means to check, inspect, look over, or examine.

This is a very common false friend for English speakers:

• revisar = to check / inspect / review
• English to revise = usually to study again or to rewrite/edit

So Revisamos el dispensador de agua caliente is more like:

• We check the hot water dispenser
• We inspected the hot water dispenser
• We looked over the hot water dispenser

Not: We revise the hot water dispenser.

Why can revisamos mean both we check and we checked?

Because revisamos is the same form for:

• present tense: we check / we are checking
• preterite: we checked

This happens with many -ar verbs in the nosotros form.

For example:

• Hoy revisamos el dispensador. = Today we check / are checking the dispenser.
• Ayer revisamos el dispensador. = Yesterday we checked the dispenser.

So the tense is usually understood from:

• the context
• a time word such as hoy, ahora, ayer, esta mañana, etc.

Why is there no nosotros in the sentence?