Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): El ventilador está apagado cuando hace frío.

In Spanish, estar is often used to describe states and conditions, such as being turned off, which can change. Using es apagado would suggest a permanent characteristic, which doesn’t make sense for an object being turned off only sometimes.

Why does the sentence say hace frío instead of something like está frío?

Spanish commonly uses hace with weather expressions, such as hace frío (it’s cold), hace calor (it’s hot), hace viento (it’s windy). Although you might occasionally hear está frío, that form is typically used to describe the temperature of an object (for example, La sopa está fría – The soup is cold).

Is cuando in Spanish used the same way as when in English?

Yes, cuando is used to introduce a time-related condition or event, much like when does in English. It can indicate that something happens at or during the time another action or state takes place.

Could I say El ventilador está apagado cuando hace mucho frío?

Absolutely. Adding mucho as an intensifier emphasizes that the temperature is very cold. It still follows the same cuando structure to say that the fan remains off during that condition.

Why do we say El ventilador instead of La ventilador?

The word ventilador is masculine in Spanish, so it takes the article el. Genders of nouns in Spanish often don’t follow a specific rule that is obvious to English speakers; they just need to be memorized in many cases.