El contador-partidor explica la capacidad testamentaria.

Contador-partidor is a fixed legal term in Spanish inheritance law. It does not mean an ordinary accountant here, even though contador by itself can mean that in other contexts.

A contador-partidor is a person with the legal role of dividing and distributing an estate among the heirs. In English, depending on context, you might see something like estate partitioner, distributor of the estate, or a more descriptive phrase rather than a neat one-word translation.

So in this sentence, it is a specialized legal profession/role.

It is written with a hyphen because it is a compound legal noun made up of two elements that function together as one title.

In legal Spanish, some fixed roles and titles are traditionally written this way. The hyphen helps show that contador-partidor is a single unit of meaning, not just two separate words placed next to each other.

El is the definite article, meaning the.

It is used because the sentence refers to a specific contador-partidor, or to the role in a general legal statement where Spanish naturally uses the definite article.

So El contador-partidor means:

• the estate divider
• the executor-like official
• or more literally, the contador-partidor

Spanish uses definite articles more often than English, especially with professions, titles, and general statements.

Explica is the third person singular present indicative of explicar.

That means it can be translated as:

• explains
• is explaining, depending on context

Here, the subject is El contador-partidor, so explica means the contador-partidor explains.

Breakdown:

• yo explico = I explain
• tú explicas = you explain
• él/ella explica = he/she explains

The subject is El contador-partidor because:

1. it comes before the verb
2. it matches the verb in third person singular
3. it is the person or role carrying out the action

So the structure is:

El contador-partidor = subject
explica = verb
la capacidad testamentaria = direct object

In other words, the contador-partidor is the one doing the explaining.

Because la capacidad testamentaria is the direct object of explica.

Spanish does not use a preposition here. You simply say:

explicar algo = to explain something

You would only see the personal a if the direct object were a specific person:

• Explica la ley = He explains the law.
• Explica la ley al heredero = He explains the law to the heir.

Here, la capacidad testamentaria is a concept, not a person, so there is no a.

Testamentaria is an adjective modifying capacidad.

It comes from testamentario/testamentaria, which in legal language means relating to a will or testamentary.

Why is it testamentaria and not testamentario? Because it agrees with capacidad, which is:

• feminine
• singular

So:

• capacidad testamentaria = feminine singular
• documento testamentario = masculine singular
• disposiciones testamentarias = feminine plural

This is standard adjective agreement in Spanish.

Because in Spanish, adjectives often come after the noun, especially in:

• technical language
• legal language
• neutral, descriptive phrases

So capacidad testamentaria is the normal legal order.

If you put the adjective before the noun, it would usually sound marked, poetic, or unnatural here. In formal legal Spanish, noun + adjective is very common.

No, it is mainly a legal term.

It refers to the legal capacity to make a valid will. So this is not everyday conversational Spanish; it belongs to the vocabulary of:

• inheritance law
• notaries
• wills and estates
• legal documents

A native speaker would understand that the sentence sounds formal and specialized.

Yes. On its own, contador can mean things like:

• accountant
• meter
• counter
• tally device

But in contador-partidor, the meaning is different because the full compound is a set legal expression.

So you should learn contador-partidor as a whole unit, not by translating contador separately.

The normal plural is contadores-partidores.

Both parts usually change to the plural because the whole expression refers to multiple people holding that role.

So:

• el contador-partidor
• los contadores-partidores

This is useful because compound legal titles in Spanish can look unusual at first.

A less technical version might replace the legal terms with more ordinary wording, for example:

• La persona encargada de repartir la herencia explica quién puede hacer testamento.
• El especialista explica la capacidad para testar.

But the original sentence is more precise in a legal setting:

• contador-partidor is a technical role
• capacidad testamentaria is a technical concept

So the original sounds like something from a legal explanation, textbook, or official document.

A broad pronunciation guide would be:

el con-ta-DOR par-ti-DOR eks-PLI-ka la ka-pa-thi-DAD tes-ta-men-TA-ria

A few points for Spain Spanish:

• c before i in capacidad is pronounced like th in much of Spain
• z in other words would also usually have that th sound in standard Peninsular Spanish
• the stress falls on:
  • contador
  • partidor
  • explica
  • capacidad
  • testamentaria

If you use Latin American pronunciation instead, capacidad would usually sound with an s rather than th, and that is also perfectly understandable.

Yes, but the original order is the most neutral and natural:

El contador-partidor explica la capacidad testamentaria.

You could change the word order for emphasis, for example:

• La capacidad testamentaria la explica el contador-partidor.

This structure emphasizes la capacidad testamentaria first.

However, in ordinary formal prose, the original subject + verb + object order is the clearest and most standard.