La responsabilidad en la familia es importante.

Responsibility in the family is important.

Breakdown of La responsabilidad en la familia es importante.

• la familia: the family
• ser: to be
• en: in
• importante: important
• la responsabilidad: the responsibility

Questions & Answers about La responsabilidad en la familia es importante.

Why do we say la responsabilidad and not just responsabilidad?

In Spanish, abstract nouns like responsabilidad, libertad, amistad, etc., often take the definite article el / la when we talk about them in a general way.

• La responsabilidad en la familia es importante.
  = Responsibility in the family (as a general concept) is important.

If you remove the article:

• Responsabilidad en la familia es importante.
  This sounds wrong/unnatural in Spanish.

So, unlike English (where we normally say Responsibility is important, with no the), Spanish usually needs la here to make it sound natural.

Could we say Las responsabilidades en la familia son importantes instead?

Yes, that is correct Spanish, but the meaning is slightly different:

• La responsabilidad en la familia es importante.
  Focuses on responsibility as a general concept within the family.

• Las responsabilidades en la familia son importantes.
  Focuses on specific duties/obligations each family member might have (chores, roles, tasks).

So both are grammatically correct; the original sentence is more about the general value of responsibility, not a list of specific responsibilities.

Why is responsabilidad feminine (with la)?

In Spanish, many nouns ending in -dad are feminine:

• la responsabilidad
• la libertad
• la ciudad
• la universidad

This is a regular pattern: -dad in Spanish often corresponds to English -ty (responsibility, liberty, city, university) and is almost always feminine. So we say la responsabilidad, not el responsabilidad.

Why is it en la familia and not de la familia?

Both en and de are possible prepositions, but they mean different things:

• en la familia = in the family / within the family context
  → We are talking about how responsibility functions inside the family.

• de la familia could mean of the family, and might be used in sentences like:

  • La responsabilidad de la familia es cuidar a los niños.
    = The family’s responsibility is to look after the children.

In the original sentence, we want to express the presence or role of responsibility within the family, so en la familia is the natural choice.

Could we say en familia instead of en la familia?

Yes, but it changes the nuance:

• en la familia
  Refers to a specific family unit (your family, families in general) as a social group.
  → Responsibility within the family.

• en familia
  Is more like saying as a family / in a family setting / in a family environment.
  Example: Me siento más cómodo hablando en familia. = I feel more comfortable talking as a family / when I’m with my family.

If you say:

• La responsabilidad en familia es importante.

it sounds more like “Responsibility when we are together as a family is important.” It’s understandable, but en la familia is more straightforward and standard here.

Why do we use es importante and not está importante?

This is the ser vs. estar difference:

• ser is used for inherent, general, or defining characteristics.
• estar is used for temporary states/conditions or locations.

Importante here describes a general quality of responsibility in the family. It’s not a temporary state; we’re saying it is important as a rule, so we use ser:

• La responsabilidad en la familia es importante. ✅
  Responsibility in the family is important (as a general fact).

Está importante is almost never used in this kind of sentence. You might occasionally hear estar importante in very specific colloquial or ironic contexts, but not with this meaning.

Why is importante the same for masculine and feminine nouns?

Adjectives in Spanish belong to different groups:

1. Adjectives that end in -o change for gender:

   • responsable father → padre responsable
   • responsable mother → madre responsable
     Wait, that’s not -o; let’s choose a better example:
   • niño responsable / niña responsable is also invariant.
     For a gender-changing one:
   • niño organizado / niña organizada.

2. Adjectives that end in -e or in a consonant are usually invariable for gender and only change for number:

   • importante:
     
     • la responsabilidad importante
     • el papel importante
     • las responsabilidades importantes
     • los papeles importantes

So importante doesn’t change between masculine and feminine, but it does change between singular and plural:

• es importante (singular)
• son importantes (plural)

Could we change the word order to Es importante la responsabilidad en la familia?

Yes, that is also grammatically correct:

• La responsabilidad en la familia es importante.
• Es importante la responsabilidad en la familia.

The difference is mostly about emphasis:

• La responsabilidad en la familia es importante.
  Neutral: subject first, then verb + adjective.

• Es importante la responsabilidad en la familia.
  Slightly more emphasis on “It is important…”, then specifying what is important.

Both sound natural; the original order is the most neutral and common.

Is la responsabilidad the subject of the sentence?

Yes.

The structure is:

• La responsabilidad en la familia → subject (what we are talking about)
• es → verb (ser)
• importante → predicate adjective (what is being said about the subject)

So grammatically:

• Subject: La responsabilidad en la familia
• Verb: es
• Complement (predicate adjective): importante

How do you pronounce responsabilidad and where is the stress?

Responsabilidad is pronounced approximately:

• re-spon-sa-bi-li-DAD

The stress (the strong syllable) falls on the last syllable -dad.

Phonetically (in a simple way for English speakers):
reh-spon-sah-bee-lee-DAHD

Key points:

• The r at the beginning is a single Spanish r (a quick tap), not the strong rolled rr.
• The d at the end in Spain is often a soft sound, sometimes almost like th in this.

Could we translate this as Family responsibility is important? Is that accurate?

Yes, Family responsibility is important is a natural translation into English and matches the general idea.

However, literally:

• La responsabilidad en la familia es importante.
  = Responsibility in the family is important.

Both English versions are acceptable:

• Responsibility in the family is important. (closer to original structure)
• Family responsibility is important. (more idiomatic in English)

Spanish is a bit more explicit with en la familia than English usually is.

Why is there no article before familia in English, but there is in Spanish (la familia)?

This is a common difference between English and Spanish:

• Spanish often uses a definite article el / la / los / las where English does not.
• English tends to omit the with general concepts or groups.

Compare:

• La música es importante. → Music is important.
• La familia es importante. → Family is important.
• La responsabilidad en la familia es importante. → Responsibility in the family is important.

So la familia is required in Spanish here, but in English we naturally say the family only when we refer to a specific family:

• La familia de Juan está aquí. → Juan’s family is here. / The family is here.

In the general sense, Spanish still keeps la, English drops the.