Breakdown of La llave está encima de la mesa.
estar
to be
la mesa
the table
encima de
on top of
la llave
the key
Questions & Answers about La llave está encima de la mesa.
Why is it la llave and not el llave?
In Spanish, every noun has a grammatical gender, masculine or feminine. The word llave is grammatically feminine, so it takes the feminine article la:
- la llave = the key
- una llave = a key
There is no logical reason based on meaning; it’s just how the word has evolved. You have to memorize llave as feminine.
What form of the verb is está, and why does it have an accent?
Está is the third person singular (he/she/it/you-formal) of the verb estar in the present tense:
The accent on está shows where the stress falls: es‑TÁ. Without the accent (esta), it would be a different word: esta = this (feminine). So:
Why do we use estar and not ser here?