Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): La directora quiere conocer a mi familia.

Because the sentence is talking about a woman in that role, it uses the feminine form directora. In Spain, this kind of gender agreement for professions is very normal and expected when you know the person’s gender.

What exactly does directora mean here — film director, manager, principal…?

Directora is a general word for a woman who is in charge of something. Its specific meaning depends on context:

la directora del colegio = the (female) school principal / headmistress
la directora de la empresa = the (female) manager / director of the company
la directora de cine = the (female) film director

With no extra context, many learners first meet this word in school contexts, so they often understand it as the (female) school principal. But grammatically, it just means “female director/head/manager.”

Why do we need la before directora?

In Spanish, you normally use a definite article (el, la, los, las) in front of a specific person’s title or job when it’s acting as the subject or object:

La directora quiere… = The director wants…
He visto a la directora. = I have seen the director.

Leaving out la (Directora quiere conocer…) would sound wrong in standard Spanish unless you were vocatively addressing her, like:

Directora, quiere conocer a mi familia. (speaking to her: “Director, you want to meet my family.”)

So in this sentence, la is obligatory to say “the director.”

Why is conocer used here instead of saber?

Spanish separates “to know/meet” into two main verbs:

conocer
- to be acquainted with a person or place:
  - Conozco a tu hermana. = I know your sister.
- to meet someone (usually for the first time):
  - Quiero conocer a tu familia. = I want to meet your family.
saber
- to know facts or information:
  - Sé la respuesta. = I know the answer.
- to know how to do something:
  - Sé conducir. = I know how to drive.

Because the sentence is about meeting / (getting to) know people (your family), conocer is the correct verb; saber would be wrong here.

Does conocer here mean “meet for the first time” or just “spend time with / meet up with”?

In Spain, conocer a alguien usually implies:

meeting someone for the first time
or
getting to know someone (building an acquaintance/relationship)

If you just mean “meet up with” people you already know, Spaniards more often say:

quedar con mi familia = to meet up with my family
reunirse con mi familia = to get together with my family

So quiere conocer a mi familia generally suggests she does not know them yet and wants to be introduced.

Why is there an a before mi familia?

That a is the personal a, which Spanish uses before direct objects that are:

specific people, or
groups of people (like a family), or
often pets (when they’re seen as “personal”)

Examples:

Veo a María. = I see María.
Conozco a tus padres. = I know your parents.
Quiero mucho a mi perro. = I love my dog very much.

Because mi familia is a group of people and the direct object of conocer, Spanish requires a:

conocer a mi familia ✅
conocer mi familia ❌ (sounds wrong in standard Spanish)

So, is quiere conocer mi familia ever correct without a?

In standard, educated Spanish (including in Spain), no. You should say:

quiere conocer a mi familia

You might occasionally hear people drop the a in some informal or non‑standard speech, but it is considered incorrect in normal written and formal spoken Spanish. For learners, always include the personal a with people:

conocer a Juan, visitar a mis abuelos, escuchar a los alumnos, etc.

Why is it mi familia and not mis familia?

Possessive adjectives mi / mis agree with the number of the noun, not with how many people that noun refers to.

familia is grammatically singular, even though a family includes many people.
So we use mi familia (my family = one family).

Compare:

mi amigo / mis amigos
mi familia / mis familias (this would mean “my families,” i.e. several different families)

In your sentence there is only one family, so it must be mi familia.

Is familia grammatically singular or plural? How does that affect verbs?

Familia is grammatically:

feminine
singular

So the verb that agrees with familia is singular:

Mi familia es grande. = My family is big.
La familia vive en Madrid. = The family lives in Madrid.

However, you often then switch to we / they when you talk from the inside of the family:

En mi familia somos cinco. = There are five of us in my family.
Mi familia y yo vivimos en Madrid. = My family and I live in Madrid.

In conocer a mi familia, no agreement issue shows up because conocer is in the infinitive and doesn’t change with familia.

Why is it quiere conocer and not something like quiere que conozca?

You use:

querer + infinitive when the subject is the same for both verbs:
- La directora quiere conocer a mi familia.
  = The director wants to meet my family.
  (She is the one who will meet them.)
querer que + subjunctive when the subject changes between the two verbs:
- La directora quiere que conozca a mi familia.
  = The director wants me to meet my family.
  (She wants someone else to do the meeting.)

In your sentence, la directora both “wants” and “will meet,” so Spanish uses quiere conocer (infinitive) rather than a que + subjunctive structure.

Why isn’t there a subject pronoun like ella in the sentence?

Spanish often drops subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, ella, etc.) because the verb ending usually tells you who the subject is.

quiere can mean:
- he wants
- she wants
- you (formal, singular) want

Context (for example, if you previously mentioned la directora) makes it clear. So:

La directora quiere conocer a mi familia.
= The director wants to meet my family.

You could add ella:

Ella, la directora, quiere conocer a mi familia.

But it’s not necessary and sounds heavier. The noun la directora already identifies who “wants.”

Could this also mean “You (formal, female director) want to meet my family”?

Yes, grammatically it could, because quiere is also the usted (formal “you”) form:

(Usted) quiere conocer a mi familia. = You (formal) want to meet my family.

So if you were speaking directly to a female director very formally, and added usted or made it clear by context, it could mean:

(Usted, la) directora, quiere conocer a mi familia.

However, as written, most readers will naturally interpret La directora quiere… as talking about her (3rd person), not to her. To clearly say “you (formal) want,” you would normally put usted somewhere or address her by name:

Directora, usted quiere conocer a mi familia.

Can I change the word order, like La directora a mi familia quiere conocer?

Spanish word order is fairly flexible, but not all orders sound natural.

The most neutral, everyday order here is:

La directora quiere conocer a mi familia.

Other orders:

La directora quiere conocer a mi familia ✅ (standard)
La directora quiere a mi familia conocer ✅ but sounds poetic/emphatic/very marked.
A mi familia la directora quiere conocer ✅ possible in spoken Spanish with strong emphasis on a mi familia (“it’s my family that the director wants to meet”), but it sounds very marked.

For normal usage, especially as a learner, stick with:

La directora quiere conocer a mi familia.