Breakdown of Mi hermana mayor se siente ya muy adulta cuando paga ella misma el alquiler.
Questions & Answers about Mi hermana mayor se siente ya muy adulta cuando paga ella misma el alquiler.
Mi hermana mayor usually means my older sister (older than me).
Spanish uses mayor for age (older/elder), not viejo/vieja in this context.
- mi hermana mayor → my older sister
- mi hermano mayor → my older brother
In some contexts, hermano mayor can also mean “eldest sibling,” but most often it just means “older than the speaker.” The context usually makes it clear if you mean “the oldest of all.”
For age, Spanish strongly prefers mayor / menor instead of más viejo / más joven when talking about people in family terms:
- hermana mayor / menor → older / younger sister
- hermano mayor / menor → older / younger brother
Using viejo for people can sound rude or focus on them being old in a negative way. Más vieja for a sister would sound odd or even insulting.
Spanish distinguishes:
sentir (non‑reflexive): to feel (something), to sense
- Siento frío. → I feel cold / I’m cold.
- Siento miedo. → I feel fear / I’m afraid.
sentirse (reflexive: se siente): to feel (a certain way), used with adjectives or adverbs
- Se siente triste. → She feels sad.
- Se siente muy adulta. → She feels very grown‑up.
In your sentence, muy adulta is an adjective describing how she feels, so Spanish uses the reflexive sentirse → se siente.
Se is the reflexive pronoun that turns sentir into sentirse.
- sentir
- noun: Ella siente miedo. → She feels fear.
- sentirse
- adjective: Ella se siente adulta. → She feels (like an) adult.
So se shows the action reflects back on the subject: she feels herself to be very adult. It’s a standard pattern with many “feeling” or “state” verbs in Spanish (for example, llamarse, sentirse, enojarse).
Ya here roughly means already, with a nuance of “now (finally)” or “by this point”:
- Se siente ya muy adulta → She already feels very grown‑up now.
It suggests a change: before she didn’t feel that way, but now, at this stage (because she pays the rent herself), she does.
You could also move it:
- Ya se siente muy adulta (more common word order) – same meaning.
Adjectives in Spanish agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.
- The noun here is hermana, which is feminine singular.
- So the adjective adulto changes to adulta (feminine singular).
Examples:
- Mi hermano mayor se siente muy adulto. (brother → adulto)
- Mi hermana mayor se siente muy adulta. (sister → adulta)
With cuando, Spanish uses indicative or subjunctive depending on the time and meaning:
Indicative (here: paga) → for habitual or past actions that are seen as real facts:
- Se siente muy adulta cuando paga ella misma el alquiler.
→ It happens regularly; whenever she pays, she feels adult.
- Se siente muy adulta cuando paga ella misma el alquiler.
Subjunctive (pague) → for future or uncertain events:
- Se sentirá muy adulta cuando pague ella misma el alquiler.
→ In the future, when she pays it herself, she will feel adult.
- Se sentirá muy adulta cuando pague ella misma el alquiler.
In your sentence, it’s describing something that happens routinely in the present, so indicative: paga is correct.
The repetition ella (and especially ella misma) is for emphasis:
- cuando paga el alquiler → when she pays the rent (neutral)
- cuando paga ella misma el alquiler → when she herself pays the rent
It highlights that she, not someone else (parents, partner, etc.), is the one paying. Spanish often uses a stressed subject pronoun (yo, tú, él, ella, etc.) in this way to contrast or emphasize.
Ella misma literally means she herself. It emphasizes the person doing the action:
- ella misma paga el alquiler → she herself pays the rent (not someone else).
Compare:
ella sola → she alone / by herself (focus on being alone, no company).
- Vive ella sola. → She lives alone.
por sí misma → by herself, on her own (focus on independence / no help).
- Lo consiguió por sí misma. → She achieved it by herself, without help.
In many contexts ella misma and por sí misma can overlap (“she herself, without help”), but ella misma is a bit more about who did it; por sí misma is more about not needing help.
Yes. Several word orders are possible, with small differences in rhythm/emphasis:
- Mi hermana mayor ya se siente muy adulta cuando paga ella misma el alquiler.
- Mi hermana mayor se siente ya muy adulta cuando paga ella misma el alquiler.
Both are correct. Ya most commonly goes before the verb (ya se siente), but putting it after (se siente ya) is also fine and can slightly stress the feeling more.
Similarly, with the second part you might hear:
- …cuando ella misma paga el alquiler.
- …cuando paga el alquiler ella misma.
All are grammatically correct; changes mainly affect emphasis and spoken rhythm.
The article:
Spanish usually uses a definite article (el / la) with general, known, or regularly paid things like rent:- pagar el alquiler → to pay the rent
- pagar la hipoteca → to pay the mortgage
Saying just pagar alquiler is not standard in Spain in this context.
Alquiler vs. renta:
- In Spain, the usual word for rent (payment) is el alquiler.
- la renta can mean income, tax return, or rent in some Latin American varieties, but in Spain el alquiler is the natural choice for the rent you pay for a flat.
Yes, that is also possible and common:
- cuando lo paga ella misma → when she herself pays it
Here lo is a direct object pronoun referring to el alquiler. Both versions are correct:
- cuando paga ella misma el alquiler (full noun)
- cuando lo paga ella misma (object pronoun)
Using lo avoids repeating el alquiler if it’s already clear from context. The meaning is essentially the same.