Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Mi hermano mayor confía en mi profesora.

To say eldest brother, Spanish often still uses hermano mayor, and the exact meaning (older vs. eldest) is taken from context. If you need to be very clear, you can say something like:

mi hermano mayor, el mayor de todos = my older brother, the oldest of all (our siblings)

But in everyday speech, hermano mayor covers both “older” and often “eldest.”

Why is it confía en and not just confía?

The verb confiar (to trust) in Spanish almost always takes the preposition en when you say who/what you trust:

confiar en alguien = to trust someone
confiar en algo = to trust something / to have confidence in something

So you must say:

Mi hermano mayor confía en mi profesora. = My older brother trusts my teacher.

Leaving out en would be ungrammatical in this meaning.

Could you use a different verb instead of confiar en, like fiarse de?

Yes, there is another common way to express trust:

fiarse de alguien = to trust someone / to rely on someone

So you could say:

Mi hermano mayor se fía de mi profesora.

Both are correct and used in Spain. Nuance:

confiar en is a bit more neutral and is very common.
fiarse de can feel slightly more colloquial or personal, though it’s not slang.

For a learner, confiar en is the safest, most general choice.

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

Confía here is:

3rd person singular (he/she/it)
present tense of confiar

Full present conjugation (indicative):

yo confío
tú confías
él / ella / usted confía
nosotros confiamos
vosotros confiáis
ellos / ellas / ustedes confían

The accent in confía marks the stressed syllable: con‑fí‑a. Without the accent (confia), it would be pronounced differently and would be a spelling mistake.

Why is it mi profesora and not mí profesora?

There are two different words:

mi (no accent) = my (possessive adjective)
- mi hermano, mi profesora
mí (with accent) = me as a stressed object pronoun
- para mí = for me
- en mí = in me / in myself

In Mi hermano mayor confía en mi profesora, the word before profesora is mi = my, so it must not have an accent.

If the sentence were Mi hermano mayor confía en mí (My older brother trusts me), then you would need the accent on mí, because it is a pronoun, not a possessive.

Why is it profesora and not profesor?

Spanish nouns have grammatical gender:

profesor = male teacher (or generic masculine in some contexts)
profesora = female teacher

The sentence says mi profesora, so it explicitly refers to a female teacher.

If the teacher were male, you would say:

Mi hermano mayor confía en mi profesor.

What is the difference between profesora and maestra in Spain?

In Spain, the usual distinction is:

profesor / profesora: teacher in secondary school, high school, university, and often also in language academies, music schools, etc.
maestro / maestra: especially a primary school teacher (younger children), or used with a nuance of vocation/respect.

So for a typical school or university teacher in Spain, profesor / profesora is the most common word. That makes mi profesora a very natural choice here.

Why isn’t there an article before mi profesora? Why not la mi profesora?

In Spanish, when you use a possessive adjective like mi, tu, su, nuestro, you normally do not add a definite article:

mi profesora = my teacher
tu hermano = your brother
nuestro coche = our car

Saying la mi profesora sounds old‑fashioned or dialectal in modern Spanish and is incorrect in standard language.

You can say la profesora (the teacher) or mi profesora (my teacher), but not both together in this kind of sentence.

Can I change the word order and say Mayor hermano mío confía en mi profesora?

No, that sounds very unnatural or literary/archaic. The normal, everyday order is:

Mi hermano mayor confía en mi profesora.

Basic pattern:

[Possessive] + [noun] + [adjective]
- mi hermano mayor
- mi casa grande (my big house)

Moving mayor or mi around like in Mayor hermano mío is not standard modern Spanish for this meaning.

Do I need to say él (he) in front of confía, like Él confía en mi profesora?

You can say Él confía en mi profesora, but you don’t need to.

Spanish is a pro‑drop language: subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, etc.) are often omitted because the verb ending already shows who the subject is. Here, we know the subject is mi hermano mayor, so adding él would be:

Mi hermano mayor, él, confía en mi profesora.

This sounds redundant unless you want to emphasize he (contrast: he trusts her, I don’t). The original sentence is perfectly natural without él.

How would this sentence look in the plural?

If you make everything plural:

Mis hermanos mayores confían en mis profesoras.
- mis = my (plural)
- hermanos mayores = older brothers
- confían = they trust
- mis profesoras = my teachers (female)

Other possible combinations:

Mis hermanos mayores confían en mis profesores. (male or mixed‑gender teachers)
Mis hermanos mayores confían en sus profesores. (their teachers, not necessarily the speaker’s)

How would you say “My older brother trusts her” instead of “my teacher”?

You replace mi profesora with a pronoun:

Mi hermano mayor confía en ella. = My older brother trusts her.

Note: you still need en, and the pronoun ella follows it:

confiar en ella = to trust her
confiar en él = to trust him
confiar en ellos = to trust them

Could this sentence mean “My older brother has confidence in my teacher” as in her ability?

Yes. Confiar en can mean:

to trust someone’s character (he trusts that she is honest, reliable), and/or
to have confidence in someone’s ability (he believes she is a good, competent teacher).

Spanish does not distinguish these two ideas here; Mi hermano mayor confía en mi profesora can express either or both, depending on context.