Breakdown of El rey colocó la corona en la cabeza del atleta que ganó la carrera.
de
of
en
on
la cabeza
the head
colocar
to place
que
who
el rey
the king
la corona
the crown
el atleta
the athlete
ganar
to win
la carrera
the race
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Spanish grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about El rey colocó la corona en la cabeza del atleta que ganó la carrera.
Why is the verb colocó in the preterite tense instead of the imperfect?
Because the preterite in Spanish is used for actions that are viewed as completed at a specific moment in the past. Here, colocó describes the single, finished act of placing the crown. The imperfect (e.g. colocaba) would imply a habitual or ongoing action, which doesn’t fit this one-time event.
Why do colocó and ganó carry accent marks?
In Spanish, most third-person singular preterite forms of -ar and -er/-ir verbs require an orthographic accent to mark the stressed syllable and distinguish them from other tenses or persons.
- colocar → colocó (usted/él/ella)
- ganar → ganó (usted/él/ella)
What’s the difference between colocar and poner? Could I use poner here?
Both verbs mean “to put,” but:
- colocar often stresses precise placement or arrangement (“to place”).
- poner is more general (“to put” or “to place”).
You could say El rey puso la corona…, but colocar sounds a bit more formal or deliberate about positioning.
Why do we say en la cabeza instead of sobre la cabeza?
Both en and sobre can translate as “on,” but:
- en la cabeza is the standard way to say “on the head” (i.e. wearing something on one’s head).
- sobre la cabeza can suggest “above” or “over the head,” like something hovering.
So en la cabeza is more natural for physically placing an object onto someone’s head.
Why is del used instead of de el before atleta?
Spanish automatically contracts de + el into del. It’s ungrammatical to keep them separate.
- Correct: del atleta
- Incorrect: de el atleta
Why is the relative pronoun que used for referring to atleta? Could I use quien?
- que is the most common relative pronoun; it refers to both people and things and is invariable.
- quien(es) can only refer to people and is used after commas or prepositions (e.g. “el atleta, quien ganó…”).
Here, que ganó la carrera is the straightforward restrictive clause: “the athlete who won the race.”
Why isn’t there an indirect object pronoun le before colocó?
In this sentence, colocar takes a direct object (la corona) and a locative complement (en la cabeza), not an indirect object. If you said colocar algo a alguien, you’d use le, but here the athlete isn’t the receiver of the crown in a dative sense—he’s the surface on which the crown is placed.
Why is el atleta masculine even though atleta ends with “-a”?
Some Spanish nouns ending in -a of Greek origin, like atleta, are masculine by default. You can say:
- el atleta (male athlete)
- la atleta (female athlete) – here the article changes to mark feminine gender.
Why do we say la corona and la cabeza? Are these nouns always feminine?
Yes, corona and cabeza are grammatically feminine nouns, so they take the feminine article la. In Spanish most nouns ending in -a are feminine, and these two are no exception.
Could we replace que ganó la carrera with que ha ganado la carrera? What changes?
Yes, but the nuance shifts:
- que ganó la carrera (simple preterite) focuses on the fact that the victory happened in the past, completed.
- que ha ganado la carrera (present perfect) links the past win to the present moment (e.g. “the athlete who has just won”).
In Spain, the preterite is more common for past events unless you explicitly want that present relevance.