Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): A veces mi profesora de filosofía nos pregunta cuál es nuestro pasatiempo y hablamos de libros y cómics. - Sometimes my philosophy teacher asks us what our hobby is and we talk about books and comics.

In Spanish, it’s very common (and natural) to put time expressions like a veces, siempre, todos los días at the beginning of the sentence to set the scene:

A veces mi profesora… – Sometimes my teacher…
Los lunes estudiamos… – On Mondays we study…

You could also say Mi profesora de filosofía a veces nos pregunta…, but starting with A veces is very typical and sounds smooth. No comma is required after A veces here, and it’s usually not written.

Why is it mi profesora de filosofía and not something like la profesora de filosofía?

Mi profesora means “my teacher”, so the possessive mi replaces the definite article (la). In Spanish you normally don’t combine mi with la:

✅ mi profesora – my (female) teacher
❌ la mi profesora

If you want to say the philosophy teacher, without the idea of “my,” you would say:

La profesora de filosofía – the (female) philosophy teacher

Also:

filosofía is not capitalized because school subjects in Spanish are written with lowercase letters unless they are part of a title.

Why is it profesora and not profesor?

Spanish nouns referring to people often mark gender:

profesor – male teacher
profesora – female teacher

So mi profesora de filosofía tells you the teacher is female.
If it were a male teacher, the sentence would be:

A veces mi profesor de filosofía nos pregunta…

What does nos mean in nos pregunta, and why is it before the verb?

Nos is an object pronoun meaning “us” in this context.

pregunta – he/she asks
nos pregunta – he/she asks us

In Spanish, unstressed object pronouns like me, te, nos, os, lo, la, los, las, le, les usually go before a conjugated verb:

Nos pregunta – She asks us
Me llama – He calls me
Les explico – I explain to them

So mi profesora de filosofía nos pregunta… = “my philosophy teacher asks us…” (not “asks to us”).

What’s going on with cuál es nuestro pasatiempo? Why is there no question mark?

Here cuál es nuestro pasatiempo is an indirect question embedded inside the larger sentence:

Direct question: ¿Cuál es vuestro pasatiempo? – “What is your hobby?”
Indirect question: Nos pregunta cuál es nuestro pasatiempo. – “She asks us what our hobby is.”

In indirect questions:

The word order is like a normal statement: cuál es nuestro pasatiempo, not cuál es nuestro pasatiempo es or something else.
There are no question marks around the embedded part in Spanish.

So the whole sentence is just one normal statement with no inner ¿…?:

A veces mi profesora de filosofía nos pregunta cuál es nuestro pasatiempo…

Why is it cuál and not qué in cuál es nuestro pasatiempo?

Here cuál corresponds to “which / what” in the sense of “which one (of all possible hobbies) is ours?”.

In Spanish:

cuál + verb “ser” is used when you’re choosing or identifying something from a set:
- ¿Cuál es tu nombre? – What is your name?
- ¿Cuál es tu libro favorito? – Which is your favorite book?
qué + noun is used more like “what + noun”:
- ¿Qué pasatiempo tienes? – What hobby do you have?
- ¿Qué libro lees? – What book are you reading?

In this sentence, the structure is cuál es + [thing], so cuál is the natural choice:

Nos pregunta cuál es nuestro pasatiempo. – She asks us what our hobby is / which is our hobby.

Why is it nuestro pasatiempo (singular) and not nuestros pasatiempos (plural), since we might have many hobbies?

Spanish allows both; it just changes the meaning slightly:

¿Cuál es nuestro pasatiempo? – What is our (main) hobby? (asking for one)
¿Cuáles son nuestros pasatiempos? – What are our hobbies? (asking for more than one)

In the sentence given, the teacher is asking for one hobby from each person (or the main one), so nuestro pasatiempo (singular) is used.

If the intention were clearly plural, you’d expect:

nos pregunta cuáles son nuestros pasatiempos

What’s the difference between pasatiempo, afición, and hobby in Spain?

All three can refer to hobbies, but there are some nuances:

pasatiempo
- Very standard word for “hobby, pastime”.
- Also used for things like puzzles and crosswords (pasatiempos in a newspaper).
afición
- Often means “interest / passion / hobby”, sometimes with a stronger sense of being really into something:
  - Mi afición es la fotografía. – My hobby/passion is photography.
- Also means fans/supporters, as in la afición de un equipo (a team’s supporters).
hobby
- An English loanword, used in spoken informal Spanish, especially among younger people, but still less formal:
  - Mi hobby es leer cómics.

In a neutral school context, pasatiempo or afición sound the most natural; pasatiempo is very textbook‑friendly.

Why is it hablamos and not something like estamos hablando?

Hablamos is the simple present tense. In Spanish, the simple present is used not only for actions happening right now, but also for regular, habitual actions:

A veces… hablamos de libros y cómics. – Sometimes we talk about books and comics.

Using estamos hablando would focus on an action in progress right now:

Ahora mismo estamos hablando de libros y cómics. – Right now we are talking about books and comics.

Because a veces indicates a repeated/habitual situation, hablamos (simple present) is the natural choice.

Why is there no nosotros before hablamos?

Spanish often drops subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, nosotros, etc.) because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

hablamos clearly marks “we” (nosotros/nosotras)
So (nosotros) hablamos → nosotros is understood and usually omitted.

You would only add nosotros for emphasis or contrast:

A veces nosotros hablamos de libros y cómics, pero ellos hablan de deportes.
Sometimes we talk about books and comics, but they talk about sports.

Why is it de libros y cómics and not sobre libros y cómics?

Both are possible, but they have slightly different flavors:

hablar de algo – the most common way to say “talk about something”:
- Hablamos de libros y cómics. – We talk about books and comics.
hablar sobre algo – also means “talk about”, sometimes with a nuance of “discuss in some depth / on the topic of”:
- Hablamos sobre libros y cómics.

In everyday speech, hablar de is more frequent and sounds very natural. That’s why de libros y cómics appears here.

What about cómics? Is that just the English word with an accent?

Yes, cómic is a loanword from English “comic”, adapted to Spanish spelling and pronunciation:

Singular: un cómic
Plural: cómics

The accent on cómic shows that the stress is on the first syllable: CO-mic.

In Spain you may also see/hear:

tebeos – a more traditional, colloquial word for comic books, especially older-style ones.

In modern usage, cómic / cómics is very common and widely understood.