Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): El perro de mi vecina nunca muerde, solo ladra cuando tiene miedo. - My neighbor’s dog never bites; it only barks when it is afraid.

You cannot say El perro mi vecina (without de) in Spanish; you either use a possessive directly before the noun (mi perro) or de + possessor after it (el perro de mi vecina).

Why is there no article before mi vecina? Why not de la vecina?

In de mi vecina, mi is a possessive adjective meaning my, so mi vecina already identifies which neighbor we are talking about. You don’t add la in front of a possessive:

✅ mi vecina – my neighbor
❌ la mi vecina – incorrect

You can say de la vecina if you mean “the neighbor’s (dog)” without saying whose neighbor:

El perro de la vecina nunca muerde – the neighbor’s dog never bites (we both know which neighbor, from context).

So:

de mi vecina – of my neighbor
de la vecina – of the (female) neighbor (specific from context, but not “my”)

Why is it nunca muerde and not no muerde nunca? Are both correct?

Both are correct, but the structure is different:

Nunca muerde / El perro de mi vecina nunca muerde
- nunca comes before the verb.
- In this position it replaces no, so you don’t need no.
- Meaning: He never bites.
No muerde nunca / El perro de mi vecina no muerde nunca
- no comes before the verb, and nunca comes after it.
- This is Spanish double negation, which is normal and correct.
- Meaning is the same: He never bites.

General rule:

If nunca, nada, nadie, jamás, etc. come before the verb → you don’t use no.
If they come after the verb → you do use no.

Peninsular Spanish speakers commonly say both Nunca muerde and No muerde nunca in everyday speech.

Why is muerde in the present tense? Shouldn’t it be something like “doesn’t bite” in Spanish?

Spanish uses the simple present for:

general truths
permanent characteristics
habits

So:

El perro de mi vecina nunca muerde literally = The dog of my neighbor never bites.

In English we often use “doesn’t bite” for this kind of habitual meaning, but in Spanish you just use the simple present. More examples:

Los gatos duermen mucho. – Cats sleep a lot.
Mi hermano fuma. – My brother smokes.

All of these are simple present in Spanish, even when English sometimes uses doesn’t X, tends to X, will X, etc.

Where is the direct object of muerde? Doesn’t morder normally take an object?

Yes, morder is normally a transitive verb (it takes a direct object):

El perro muerde el sofá. – The dog bites the sofa.
El perro muerde a la gente. – The dog bites people.

In El perro de mi vecina nunca muerde, the direct object is simply understood: never bites (anyone / anything).

Spanish often omits an obvious or generic object:

No come. – He doesn’t eat (anything).
No bebe. – He doesn’t drink (alcohol, for example).

You could make the object explicit:

El perro de mi vecina nunca muerde a nadie. – My neighbor’s dog never bites anyone.

What is the difference between morder and picar?

Both can be translated as to bite, but they’re used differently:

morder – what animals with teeth do: dogs, people, snakes, etc.
- El perro muerde. – The dog bites.
- Me mordí la lengua. – I bit my tongue.
picar – small sting / prick / bite, especially from insects or spicy food:
- Me ha picado un mosquito. – A mosquito bit/stung me.
- Este chile pica mucho. – This chili is very spicy (it “burns”).

So for a dog, morder is the natural choice: El perro nunca muerde.

Why is it solo ladra and not solamente ladra? And what about sólo with an accent?

Here solo is an adverb meaning “only”:

solo ladra – it only barks

You have three options with effectively the same meaning:

solo ladra
solamente ladra
sólo ladra

About the accent:

Traditionally, sólo (meaning only) had an accent to distinguish it from solo (alone).
The modern RAE recommendation is: no accent in almost all cases → solo.
Many people in Spain still write sólo when it means only, but solo ladra (without accent) is considered standard and correct today.

So:

El perro solo ladra = The dog only barks.
El perro está solo = The dog is alone. (here it’s clearly “alone”, an adjective).

Does the comma before solo change the meaning? Could we write the sentence without it?

Original:
El perro de mi vecina nunca muerde, solo ladra cuando tiene miedo.

The comma separates two closely related parts:
- nunca muerde
- solo ladra cuando tiene miedo

Without a comma:

El perro de mi vecina nunca muerde solo ladra cuando tiene miedo. – looks and sounds awkward; it’s easy to misread.

In general:

A comma is very natural here in Spanish: it marks a pause and separates two statements about the same subject.
Meaning doesn’t really change; punctuation just makes the sentence clearer and easier to process.

Is there any difference between solo ladra cuando tiene miedo and ladra solo cuando tiene miedo?

Yes, it’s a small difference of emphasis:

solo ladra cuando tiene miedo
- Focus on what it does in general: it only barks (instead of biting), and that happens when it’s afraid.
- Roughly: It doesn’t bite; it only barks when it’s scared.
ladra solo cuando tiene miedo
- Focus on when it barks: it barks only when it is afraid, not in other situations.
- Roughly: It barks only when it’s scared (and not at other times).

In context, most people would understand both in almost the same way, but:

solo ladra cuando… → emphasis on only barks (doesn’t bite)
ladra solo cuando… → emphasis on only when it’s afraid

Why is it cuando tiene miedo and not cuando tenga miedo (subjunctive)?

Cuando tiene miedo uses the present indicative because:

It describes a general, habitual situation: “Whenever he is afraid, he barks.”

In Spanish:

For repeated / habitual / generally true actions in the present, you use indicative after cuando:
- Cuando llueve, me quedo en casa. – When it rains, I stay at home.
- Cuando tiene hambre, llora. – When he is hungry, he cries.

You use subjunctive after cuando mainly for future or uncertain events:

Cuando tenga miedo, ladrará. – When he gets scared (in the future), he will bark.
Cuando llegues, llámame. – When you arrive, call me.

So in this sentence, because we’re talking about a habitual pattern, tiene miedo (indicative) is correct.

Why is it tiene miedo (literally “has fear”) instead of something like “is afraid”?

Spanish often uses tener + noun to express physical or emotional states that English expresses with “to be + adjective”:

tener miedo – to be afraid
tener hambre – to be hungry
tener sed – to be thirsty
tener frío / calor – to be cold / hot

So:

cuando tiene miedo – when he is afraid (literally: when he has fear).

You can also say:

cuando está asustado – when he is scared

Nuance:

tener miedo = a general state of feeling fear.
estar asustado = more clearly “to be frightened / startled” in a specific moment.

In this context, both are possible, but tener miedo is the most common and neutral way.

Why is there no subject pronoun like él before nunca muerde or ladra?

Spanish usually omits subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, ella, etc.) when the subject is clear from the verb ending or from context.

Here, the subject is clearly El perro de mi vecina. Once you’ve said that, you don’t need to repeat él:

El perro de mi vecina nunca muerde, solo ladra cuando tiene miedo.

Adding él would sound unnatural:

❌ El perro de mi vecina, él nunca muerde… (you’d only do this in very marked, contrastive speech).

Compare:

Vivo en Madrid. – I live in Madrid. (subject yo is omitted)
Comemos tarde. – We eat late. (subject nosotros is omitted)

So dropping the pronoun is the normal pattern in Spanish.

How would this idea be expressed with a relative clause, more like English?

A very natural alternative in Spanish using a relative clause is:

Mi vecina tiene un perro que nunca muerde, solo ladra cuando tiene miedo.
- My neighbor has a dog that never bites; it only barks when it’s scared.

Structure:

Mi vecina tiene un perro – My neighbor has a dog
que nunca muerde – that never bites
solo ladra cuando tiene miedo – it only barks when it’s afraid

Both versions are natural:

El perro de mi vecina nunca muerde…
Mi vecina tiene un perro que nunca muerde…

The meaning is basically the same; the difference is just in structure and emphasis.