Breakdown of Mi profesora quiere mostrar la diferencia en la pizarra.
Questions & Answers about Mi profesora quiere mostrar la diferencia en la pizarra.
Profesora is the feminine form of profesor. Spanish normally marks grammatical gender on nouns referring to people:
- mi profesor = my (male) teacher / professor
- mi profesora = my (female) teacher / professor
So the sentence is explicitly talking about a female teacher. If your teacher is male, you would say:
- Mi profesor quiere mostrar la diferencia en la pizarra.
In Spain, profesor / profesora is quite broad:
- It can mean a school teacher (primary or secondary).
- It can also mean a university lecturer or professor.
Context usually tells you which. If you need to be clearer, people might say:
- profesora de primaria / de secundaria / de instituto (school teacher)
- profesora de universidad (university lecturer/professor)
After querer you have two common patterns:
querer + infinitive (same subject for both verbs)
- Mi profesora quiere mostrar la diferencia.
= My teacher wants to show the difference (she wants to do the showing).
- Mi profesora quiere mostrar la diferencia.
querer que + subjunctive (different subjects)
- Mi profesora quiere que yo muestre la diferencia.
= My teacher wants me to show the difference (I do the showing).
- Mi profesora quiere que yo muestre la diferencia.
In your sentence, the teacher both wants and shows, so Spanish uses querer + infinitive.
Yes, grammatically that is fine, but only if the subject is obvious from context.
Spanish often drops the subject when it is understood:
- Quiere mostrar la diferencia en la pizarra.
= She/he wants to show the difference on the board.
Without context, we don’t know who quiere refers to. Using Mi profesora makes it clear who is doing the action.
Both can work here, but there is a nuance:
- mostrar = to show (visually, concretely)
- enseñar = to teach / also to show, but with more of a teaching idea
In this context:
Mi profesora quiere mostrar la diferencia en la pizarra.
Emphasis on visually showing it on the board.Mi profesora quiere enseñar la diferencia en la pizarra.
Emphasis a bit more on teaching/explaining that difference (using the board).
In everyday classroom Spanish, both would sound natural.
Spanish articles (definite vs indefinite) work similarly to English, but with some differences:
- la diferencia = the difference, a specific, known difference
- una diferencia = a difference, one of possibly many, not yet specified
In a typical classroom context, the teacher is usually referring to a specific difference that’s already clear (for example, between two tenses, two words, two methods), so la diferencia is more natural.
However, una diferencia could be used if you mean “a (certain) difference” among many:
- Mi profesora quiere mostrar una diferencia en la pizarra.
= My teacher wants to show a (one) difference on the board (not necessarily the only or main one).
In Spanish, for things written or drawn on a board, the normal preposition is en:
- escribir en la pizarra = to write on the board
- dibujar en la pizarra = to draw on the board
- mostrar algo en la pizarra = to show something on the board
You can say sobre la pizarra literally as “on top of the board,” but in this context it sounds unusual or overly literal. Native speakers virtually always use en for “on” when referring to surfaces in this kind of situation.
In Spain, pizarra is the usual word for the classroom board, regardless of whether it’s a traditional blackboard or a modern whiteboard:
- pizarra = blackboard / chalkboard / whiteboard (context decides)
Sometimes people are more specific:
- pizarra digital = interactive whiteboard / smartboard
In much of Latin America, you’ll also hear pizarrón, but in Spain pizarra is standard.
In Spain, en la pizarra is the normal, natural expression.
pizarrón is widely used in Latin America, but in Spain it sounds clearly Latin American or non‑standard. If you want specifically Peninsular Spanish (Spain), stick to:
- en la pizarra
You could say Mi profesora quiere en la pizarra mostrar la diferencia, and it is grammatically possible, but it sounds a bit marked or literary.
The most natural, neutral word order is:
- Mi profesora quiere mostrar la diferencia en la pizarra.
Spanish word order is flexible, but unusual orders are usually used for emphasis or stylistic reasons. In everyday spoken Spanish, people would very rarely move en la pizarra into the middle like that.
In Spanish, you almost never double the subject like that. You usually choose one:
- Mi profesora quiere mostrar la diferencia. ✅
- Ella quiere mostrar la diferencia. ✅
- Mi profesora, ella quiere mostrar la diferencia. ❌ (sounds unnatural, redundant)
Subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, ella, nosotros…) are mostly used when you need to clarify or emphasize who is doing the action, not together with a full noun subject.
You can add an indirect object pronoun if you want to show to whom she’s showing the difference:
Mi profesora quiere mostrarme la diferencia en la pizarra.
= My teacher wants to show me the difference on the board.Mi profesora quiere mostrarnos la diferencia en la pizarra.
= My teacher wants to show us the difference on the board.
The original sentence is just more general. It doesn’t specify who will receive the explanation; the context (a class) often makes that obvious. Both versions are grammatically correct.
Quiere is the present tense (presente de indicativo) of querer for él / ella / usted:
- yo quiero
- tú quieres
- él / ella / usted quiere
- nosotros/as queremos
- vosotros/as queréis
- ellos / ellas / ustedes quieren
So in your sentence:
- Mi profesora (ella) quiere…
The form quiere would also be used for él or usted. The subject (here, Mi profesora) tells us it refers to ella.