La música calma el cansancio por la noche.

Music calms tiredness at night.

Breakdown of La música calma el cansancio por la noche.

• la noche: the night
• la música: the music
• .: period
• por: at
• calmar: to calm
• el cansancio: the tiredness

Questions & Answers about La música calma el cansancio por la noche.

Why does the sentence use la música instead of just música?

In Spanish, when you talk about something in a general sense (music as a concept), you usually use the definite article:

• La música = music in general
• La gente, el vino, el amor, etc. (people, wine, love in general)

Saying just música calma el cansancio is not wrong, but it sounds less natural and a bit incomplete in standard Spanish from Spain.

So la música here means “music (in general) calms tiredness at night.”

Why is música feminine (why la and not el música)?

Most nouns ending in -a are feminine in Spanish, and música follows that pattern:

• la música
• la casa
• la silla

There are exceptions (like el día, el mapa), but música is a regular feminine noun, so it takes la.

What form of the verb is calma, and why is it used here?

Calma is:

• Present tense (presente de indicativo)
• 3rd person singular form of calmar (to calm)

Conjugation:

• yo calmo
• tú calmas
• él / ella / usted calma
• nosotros calmamos
• vosotros calmáis
• ellos / ustedes calman

The subject is la música (3rd person singular), so the verb must be calma. The present tense in Spanish is often used for general truths or habitual actions, like:

• La música calma el cansancio por la noche.
• El café despierta a mucha gente.

Could we say La música alivia el cansancio instead of calma el cansancio?

Yes, and it would sound natural.

• calmar = to calm, soothe
• aliviar = to relieve, ease

Both verbs work here:

• La música calma el cansancio por la noche.
• La música alivia el cansancio por la noche.

Calma emphasizes soothing; alivia emphasizes reducing or easing the tiredness.

Why does the sentence use el cansancio and not something like el cansado?

Cansancio is a noun (tiredness, fatigue).
Cansado is an adjective (tired).

In this sentence, the verb calmar needs a thing (a noun) as its direct object:

• calmar
  • noun:
    
    • calmar el dolor (to calm the pain)
    • calmar los nervios (to calm the nerves)
    • calmar el cansancio (to calm the tiredness)

If you wanted to talk about a person, you’d say, for example:

• La música calma a la gente cansada. (Music calms tired people.)

Why is it por la noche and not en la noche or de la noche?

With parts of the day, Spanish usually uses por to mean “in/at [that time]” in a general, non-specific sense:

• por la mañana – in the morning
• por la tarde – in the afternoon
• por la noche – at night / in the evening

En la noche exists, but it’s less common and can sound more specific, more literary, or more Latin American than Peninsular in many contexts.

De la noche is mostly used with clock times:

• a las diez de la noche – at ten at night / 10 p.m.

So for “at night” in a general-habitual sense, por la noche is the normal choice in Spain.

Could we say por las noches instead of por la noche? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can say both, and both are correct:

• por la noche – at night (more neutral; can be general or one specific night, depending on context)
• por las noches – at nights / on nights (clearly habitual, “on nights generally”)

In most cases, it would be understood as habitual either way, but por las noches makes the idea of repetition a bit more explicit:

• La música calma el cansancio por las noches.
  → Music calms tiredness at night(s), night after night.

Why do we say por la noche and not por noche (without la)?

Time expressions with parts of the day almost always use the article:

• por la mañana – not por mañana
• por la tarde – not por tarde
• por la noche – not por noche

Without the article, it sounds unnatural or wrong in standard Spanish. So la is required here.

What is the subject of the sentence, and what is the direct object?

• Subject: la música
• Verb: calma
• Direct object: el cansancio

You can test it by asking in Spanish:

• ¿Qué calma la música? → el cansancio (what does the music calm? The tiredness.)

There is no preposition a before el cansancio because it is not a person; it’s a thing (a noun/abstract concept).

Can we change the word order, like Por la noche la música calma el cansancio?

Yes. Spanish word order is quite flexible. All these are grammatically correct:

• La música calma el cansancio por la noche.
• Por la noche, la música calma el cansancio.
• Por la noche la música calma el cansancio.

The differences are mainly about emphasis:

• Starting with Por la noche emphasizes the time: “At night, music calms tiredness.”
• Starting with La música keeps the subject as the main focus.

Why is it calma and not calman even though we’re talking about “music” in general?

In Spanish, the verb must agree in number with the grammatical subject, not with the meaning of “many songs” or “a lot of music.”

• Subject: la música → singular
• So the verb must be: calma (3rd person singular)

Compare:

• La música calma el cansancio. (Music calms tiredness.)
• Las canciones calman el cansancio. (Songs calm tiredness.)

Here, las canciones is plural, so calman is plural.

Is there any reason noche is feminine (why la noche and not el noche)?

It’s mainly lexical: noche is simply defined as a feminine noun in Spanish, so it takes la:

• la noche, una noche, esta noche

Unlike música, you can’t rely on the ending: many words ending in -e can be either masculine or feminine (el coche, la tarde, etc.). You just have to learn noche as feminine.

How is cansancio pronounced in Spain, and is it different from Latin America?

In Spain (most regions), cansancio is pronounced with a “th” sound for c before i:

• can-SAN-thyo [kanˈsanθjo]

In most of Latin America, cansancio is pronounced with an “s” sound:

• can-SAN-syo [kanˈsansjo]

The spelling is the same; only the sound of c before i (and z) changes between [θ] (like English “thin”) in Spain and [s] in most of Latin America.