La bomba dañó el edificio.

The bomb damaged the building.

Breakdown of La bomba dañó el edificio.

• el edificio: the building
• dañar: to damage
• la bomba: the bomb

Questions & Answers about La bomba dañó el edificio.

Why is it la bomba but el edificio?

Because Spanish nouns have grammatical gender.

• bomba is a feminine noun, so it takes la
• edificio is a masculine noun, so it takes el

This gender is grammatical, not about whether the thing is literally male or female.

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Why is the verb dañó and not daña or dañaba?

Dañó is the preterite form of dañar, used for a completed action in the past.

So La bomba dañó el edificio means the damaging happened as a finished event.

Compare:

• dañó = damaged
• daña = damages / is damaging
• dañaba = was damaging / used to damage

In this sentence, the preterite is the natural choice because it describes a single completed event.

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What does the accent mark in dañó do?

The accent mark shows where the stress goes and also helps identify the verb form.

• dañó is stressed on the last syllable: da-ÑÓ
• Without the accent, dano would not be the correct spelling here

The accent is important because it marks this as the third-person singular preterite form: he/she/it damaged.

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