Mi profesora sonríe cuando hablo despacio en clase.

I

Breakdown of Mi profesora sonríe cuando hablo despacio en clase.

• en: in
• mi: my
• cuando: when

Questions & Answers about Mi profesora sonríe cuando hablo despacio en clase.

Why is it mi profesora and not mi profesor?

In Spanish, most nouns that refer to people have a masculine and a feminine form:

• profesor = (male) teacher
• profesora = (female) teacher

So mi profesora tells us the teacher is female.
If the teacher were male, you would say mi profesor.

Also:

• mi = my (for singular nouns, both masculine and feminine)
  
  • mi profesor – my (male) teacher
  • mi profesora – my (female) teacher
• mis = my for plural
  
  • mis profesores – my teachers (mixed group or all male)
  • mis profesoras – my (all female) teachers

What tense and person is sonríe, and why does it have an accent?

Sonríe is:

• verb: sonreír (to smile)
• tense: present indicative
• person: 3rd person singular (he / she / it / you-formal)

Roughly: sonríe = he/she smiles.

The accent is there because sonreír has stress on the last syllable in the infinitive (son-re-ÍR), and when you conjugate it, the stressed vowel must keep its written accent to indicate where the stress falls:

• yo sonrío
• tú sonríes
• él / ella / usted sonríe
• nosotros / nosotras sonreímos
• vosotros / vosotras sonreís
• ellos / ellas / ustedes sonríen

The written accent marks the stressed vowel and also helps distinguish these forms from what would otherwise be regular patterns.