Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): He comprado una almohada nueva para dormir mejor por las noches. - I have bought a new pillow to sleep better at night.

In Spain, people often use the present perfect (he comprado) to talk about recent past actions that still feel relevant to the present moment. It suggests that the purchase is closely tied to the current situation, whereas compré (the preterite) tends to place the action more definitively in the past.

Why do we say para dormir instead of something like para durmiendo?

In Spanish, when you use para (or most prepositions) to express purpose, you must use the infinitive form of the verb (dormir). Using a gerund (like durmiendo) would be grammatically incorrect in this structure. So it's para dormir to mean "in order to sleep."

Why is it por las noches rather than por la noche or en la noche?

Por las noches means "at night" in a recurring, habitual sense, implying "night after night." Saying por la noche is more general and can also work in some contexts, but por las noches is commonly used when you refer to repeated actions or situations happening at night over multiple nights.

Why is it una almohada nueva instead of nueva almohada?

Adjectives in Spanish can come before or after the noun, but they often go after the noun to carry a more literal or descriptive meaning. Saying una almohada nueva emphasizes that the pillow is literally new. If you placed nueva before the noun, it might shift the nuance (sometimes implying a "different" or "another" pillow rather than brand-new).

Is almohada always feminine?

Yes, almohada is a feminine noun in Spanish (la almohada). All words ending in -a are not automatically feminine, but this one specifically is. You’ll often see it with the article la (la almohada).

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