Breakdown of El ventilador está apagado cuando hace frío.
estar
to be
cuando
when
el frío
the cold
el ventilador
the fan
apagado
off
hacer
to do
AI Language TutorTry it ↗
“What's the best way to learn Spanish grammar?”
Spanish grammar becomes intuitive with practice. Focus on understanding the core patterns first — how sentences are structured, how verbs change form, and how words relate to each other. Our course breaks these concepts into small lessons so you can build understanding step by step.
Sign up free — start using our AI language tutor
Start learning SpanishMaster Spanish — from El ventilador está apagado cuando hace frío to fluency
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods.
- ✓ Infinitely deep — unlimited vocabulary and grammar
- ✓ Fast-paced — build complex sentences from the start
- ✓ Unforgettable — efficient spaced repetition system
- ✓ AI tutor to answer your grammar questions
More from this lesson
Questions & Answers about El ventilador está apagado cuando hace frío.
Why do we use está apagado instead of es apagado?
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.