Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): En este país sufrimos sequía en verano e inundaciones en otoño. - In this country we suffer drought in summer and floods in autumn.

Sufrimos literally means “we suffer”. In Spanish it’s very common to use sufrir with negative situations, especially natural disasters or problems, even if you’re not “suffering” in a dramatic emotional sense:

En este país sufrimos sequía.
→ In this country we suffer from drought.
Sufren muchos cortes de luz.
→ They suffer a lot of power cuts.

You could say:

En este país tenemos sequía… – grammatically fine, but sounds a bit less natural; more like “we have drought”.
En este país hay sequía… – “there is drought” is also correct and common.

Sufrimos adds a nuance of being negatively affected by the drought and floods, not just that they exist.

Does sufrimos mean “we (the speaker + others)” literally, or can it be a general “people in this country” like English “we”?

It can be both, and in this kind of sentence it is often a general “we”:

En este país sufrimos sequía…
→ Could mean “I and the group I belong to” (e.g. “we Spaniards”)
→ Or more broadly: “people in this country suffer drought…”

Spanish often uses nosotros / -mos forms to express a collective reality about a country, region, or group:

En España comemos muy tarde. – In Spain we eat very late.
En mi ciudad usamos mucho el transporte público. – In my city we use public transport a lot.

So you don’t need to imagine the speaker personally out in the fields; it’s a standard way to talk about what the population goes through.

Why is sequía singular, but inundaciones is plural?

This is a natural choice of countable vs. uncountable:

sequía (drought) is often treated as a general condition, like a state that affects a period or area:
- Sufrimos sequía en verano. – We suffer (from) drought in summer.
  It’s like saying “we suffer drought” as a kind of situation.
inundación / inundaciones (flood / floods) are more commonly seen as separate events:
- Sufrimos inundaciones en otoño. – We suffer (from) floods in autumn.

You can say:

Sufrimos sequías en verano. – “We suffer droughts in summer.”
This would picture repeated/individual drought periods over different years.

And you could also say:

Sufrimos inundación en otoño. – but this would be more like “we suffer a flood in autumn” (one general one), and sounds less natural if it happens every autumn.

Why is there no article before sequía? Why not “sufrimos la sequía”?

Here sequía is used in a generic, abstract sense: drought as a phenomenon. Spanish often drops the article for a negative condition treated like a mass or abstract noun:

Sufrimos sequía. – We suffer (from) drought.
Padecieron hambre. – They suffered (from) hunger.
Hay pobreza. – There is poverty.

If you say:

Sufrimos la sequía.

you’re pointing to a specific, known drought (“the drought”) – maybe one everybody has been talking about. So both are possible, but without la it sounds more like a general climatic problem that occurs in summer.

Why is it e inundaciones and not y inundaciones?

Spanish changes y to e when the next word starts with the /i/ sound (spelled i- or hi-) to avoid an awkward “ee” sound:

y → e before an i/hi sound:
- padre e hijo (not padre y hijo)
- agua e hielo (not agua y hielo)
- sequía e inundaciones

Similarly, o becomes u before an o/ho sound:

siete u ocho (not siete o ocho)
uno u otro

Note that if the next word starts with “ie-” or “ia-” and the /i/ part is not the first sound (like “hierro” sometimes pronounced [ˈjero]), the change may not happen, depending on pronunciation and the speaker.

Why is it en verano and en otoño? Do you always need en with seasons?

In Spanish you typically use en with seasons and months:

en verano – in (the) summer
en otoño – in (the) autumn / fall
en enero – in January

However, unlike days of the week, you don’t normally add the article here for general statements:

En verano hace calor. (NOT En el verano hace calor. in neutral, modern usage)
En otoño llueve mucho.

En el verano / en el otoño is possible but tends to sound either more specific or a bit old-fashioned / literary in many contexts in Spain. The neutral, everyday option for general facts is en + season without the article.

Could you say “En este país sufrimos sequía en el verano”? Would that be wrong?

It’s not wrong, but it sounds less natural and a bit marked in modern European Spanish when talking about a general climate pattern.

En este país sufrimos sequía en verano… – most natural, general statement.
En este país sufrimos sequía en el verano… – grammatically correct, but could sound:
- more specific (e.g. thinking about a particular summer), or
- a bit bookish in Spain.

In Latin America, you might hear en el verano a little more, but en verano is also very common there. For a neutral, general description, en verano / en otoño is the safest choice.

Is the word order fixed? Could I say “En este país, en verano sufrimos sequía y en otoño inundaciones”?

Yes, Spanish word order is quite flexible, especially with adverbials (time, place):

All of these are natural, with slightly different emphasis:

En este país sufrimos sequía en verano e inundaciones en otoño.
(base sentence)
En este país, en verano sufrimos sequía y en otoño sufrimos inundaciones.
– Emphasises the time expressions and repeats the verb for clarity.
En verano sufrimos sequía y en otoño, inundaciones, en este país.
– More poetic or rhetorical; moving en este país to the end adds emphasis.

The given order is very normal: place (en este país) + verb (sufrimos) + what + when.

What’s the difference between sufrimos and estamos sufriendo here?

Sufrimos (present simple) usually expresses:
- habits, general truths, or repeated situations:
  - En este país sufrimos sequía en verano.
    → It happens every summer, as a pattern.
Estamos sufriendo (present continuous) focuses more on:
- right now / at this moment:
  - En este país estamos sufriendo sequía.
    → We are currently suffering from drought (these days/this year).

So in your sentence, sufrimos is chosen because the speaker is describing a regular, recurring climate reality, not just a temporary event.

What does sequía look like in the plural, and is it masculine or feminine?

Singular: la sequía – drought
Plural: las sequías – droughts
It is feminine.

Examples:

Esta sequía es muy larga. – This drought is very long.
Las sequías de los últimos años han sido muy graves. – The droughts of recent years have been very serious.

In your sentence, it appears without article and in singular: sufrimos sequía (drought as a condition).

How is sequía pronounced, and why is there an accent on í?

Pronunciation (Spain): [seˈkia]
Breakdown:

se- → like “seh”
-quí- → written qu
- í:
  - qu before i means a /k/ sound.
  - the u is silent here (as in queso, quince).
  - the accent on í forces the stress there and makes e + ía a hiatus (two separate syllables: se
    - quí
      - a → se-quí-a).

The written accent shows that the stress falls on -quí- (sequía), not on the usual second-to-last syllable as the normal rule would predict.

Why does país have an accent, and how do you pronounce it?

País is pronounced [paˈis], two syllables: pa-ís.

The accent mark on í indicates:
- the word is stressed on the last syllable (-ís),
- and that a + í forms a hiatus (two distinct vowels), not a diphthong.

Without the accent (pais) it would look like a plain word that should be stressed on the second-to-last syllable by default, which would be wrong here. So:

país = country (with the accent)
País Vasco, países (plural) – note that the plural países no longer needs the accent because -ses already makes it paroxytone (stress on pa-Í-ses → pa-Í-ses, written países).

Why este país and not ese país or aquel país?

The choice of este / ese / aquel depends on distance (physical, emotional, or conceptual):

este país – “this country”:
- Normally the speaker’s country, or one they feel very close to.
ese país – “that country”:
- A country that is being talked about, but is not “ours”.
aquel país – “that country over there / that (far) country”:
- More distant, often either geographically or emotionally / historically.

So with En este país…, the speaker is presenting themselves as part of the country they’re describing, or at least speaking from within it.

Why doesn’t este have an accent (éste)? I’ve seen éste in some books.

Traditionally, éste, ése, aquél (with accent) were used as pronouns, and este, ese, aquel (without accent) as adjectives before a noun:

éste es caro – this (one) is expensive.
este país es caro – this country is expensive.

However, current RAE recommendations say the accent is no longer needed in almost all cases, even as a pronoun:

Este es caro. (recommended now)
Ese es mío.
Aquel es tuyo.

In your sentence, este is clearly a determiner before a noun (este país), so it correctly appears without an accent.