Breakdown of A veces la conexión del wifi falla y no puedo descargar el episodio.
Questions & Answers about A veces la conexión del wifi falla y no puedo descargar el episodio.
A veces (sometimes) is a fairly flexible time expression. All of these are correct:
- A veces la conexión del wifi falla y no puedo descargar el episodio.
- La conexión del wifi a veces falla y no puedo descargar el episodio.
- La conexión del wifi falla a veces y no puedo descargar el episodio.
Putting A veces at the beginning is very common and sounds natural, but moving it next to the verb (falla) is also perfectly fine.
What you normally don’t do is split it: you wouldn’t say a la conexión del wifi veces falla — a veces must stay together as one chunk.
Del is a contraction of de + el:
- de + el wifi → del wifi
Spanish always contracts de el to del (and a el to al) when el is the masculine singular article, not a pronoun. So:
- ✅ la conexión del wifi
- ❌ la conexión de el wifi
This is a fixed rule in standard Spanish, both in Spain and Latin America.
- conexión is a feminine noun, so it takes la: la conexión.
- Many nouns ending in -ción are feminine: la información, la estación, la invitación.
- wifi is usually treated as masculine (el wifi) in many places, especially in Latin America.
In Spain, you will also hear la wifi very often. Both el wifi and la wifi are accepted by the Spanish Academy, but:
- In Spain, la wifi is extremely common in everyday speech.
- In much of Latin America, el wifi is more usual.
So for Spain:
- la conexión de la wifi is something you will hear a lot, but la conexión del wifi is also understood and correct. The sentence you have is grammatically fine; just be aware of the common variation in real life.
Falla is the 3rd person singular (he/she/it) present form of fallar.
- fallar literally means to fail, to go wrong, to malfunction.
- In this sentence, la conexión del wifi falla means the wifi connection fails / keeps dropping / doesn’t work properly.
You could also say:
- A veces la conexión del wifi no funciona y no puedo descargar el episodio.
Differences in nuance:
- falla suggests errors, interruptions, or unreliability (it keeps failing).
- no funciona simply describes it as not working at that moment.
Both are very natural; fallar is very common for technology: el móvil falla, la red está fallando, etc.
The subject is la conexión del wifi.
Breakdown:
- la conexión del wifi = subject (singular)
- falla = verb (3rd person singular, present)
The verb agrees with the core noun conexión, which is singular, not with wifi. That’s why you say falla, not fallan.
If the subject were plural, you would change the verb:
- Las conexiones fallan. – The connections fail.
There are two key points here:
Word order with negation
In Spanish, no goes directly before the conjugated verb:- no puedo descargar (I can’t download)
- no descargo (I don’t download)
- no quiero ir (I don’t want to go)
You don’t move no to another position like in English.
Poder + infinitive structure
Puedo is the conjugated form of poder (to be able to / can).
After poder, the second verb stays in the infinitive form:- puedo descargar (I can download)
- puedo hablar (I can speak)
- puedo comer (I can eat)
So:
- ❌ no puedo descargo – incorrect (two conjugated verbs)
- ✅ no puedo descargar – correct (conjugated puedo
- infinitive descargar)
Both can be used for downloading, especially files, music, or episodes.
- descargar – more formal/standard, common in interfaces, settings, manuals:
- descargar el episodio, descargar el archivo.
- bajar – more colloquial in many areas, literally to lower / to bring down:
- bajar una película, bajar una canción.
In everyday Spanish (including in Spain), you’ll hear both. Your sentence with descargar is perfectly natural:
- no puedo descargar el episodio
In Spain you could also hear:
- no puedo bajar el episodio
The meaning is the same here.
Use of the article
Spanish uses definite articles more often than English. Here, el episodio suggests a specific episode the speaker has in mind (for example, the one they are trying to download right now).- no puedo descargar el episodio – I can’t download the episode (the one we both know about).
- no puedo descargar episodios – I can’t download episodes (in general).
Leaving out the article would change the meaning.
Episodio vs. capítulo
In Spain:- capítulo is very common for TV series episodes:
el capítulo de ayer, el último capítulo de la serie. - episodio is also used and understood, especially for podcasts, series on streaming platforms, etc.
- capítulo is very common for TV series episodes:
So in Spain, both are fine. You might often hear:
- no puedo descargar el capítulo
or - no puedo descargar el episodio
depending on context and personal preference.
All of these talk about frequency, but with slightly different nuances:
- A veces – sometimes; neutral, fairly common:
- A veces la conexión del wifi falla.
- Algunas veces – literally some times; close to a veces, but a bit more explicit or emphatic.
- A menudo – often:
- A menudo la conexión del wifi falla. → The wifi connection often fails.
- De vez en cuando – from time to time, every now and then; suggests it happens, but not all that frequently.
In your sentence, A veces is the standard, neutral choice for sometimes.
You could say la conexión de wifi falla, and people would understand you, but la conexión del wifi falla sounds more natural in standard Spanish because:
- When you’re talking about a specific system or service (the wifi you have at home, at the café, etc.), using the article (el wifi) is more natural:
- la conexión del wifi ≈ the wifi connection / the connection of the wifi service we’re using.
By contrast, de wifi without an article can sound more generic or technical, like “a type of connection that uses wifi”, which is less usual in everyday speech.
So for normal conversation, especially in Spain, stick with:
- A veces la conexión del wifi falla…
(or de la wifi, which is also very commonly heard there).