Breakdown of Mi suegra vive en otro barrio y es muy amable.
Questions & Answers about Mi suegra vive en otro barrio y es muy amable.
In standard Spanish, when you talk about a single family member and use a possessive (my, your, his/her, etc.), you normally do not use the article:
- mi madre – my mother
- tu hermano – your brother
- su hija – his/her daughter
- mi suegra – my mother-in-law
So mi suegra is the normal form.
*la mi suegra sounds archaic or very regional, and learners should avoid it.
If you drop the possessive and speak more generally, you can use an article:
- La suegra vive lejos. – The mother-in-law lives far away. (we already know whose from context)
Suegra means mother-in-law (the mother of your spouse or long‑term partner).
Related words:
- suegro – father-in-law
- suegros – parents-in-law, or “my in-laws” (when referring to the two parents)
- Mis suegros viven en Sevilla. – My in-laws live in Seville.
- familia política – broader term for “in-laws” (all relatives gained by marriage)
- Voy a cenar con mi familia política. – I’m going to have dinner with my in-laws.
So mi suegra vive… = my mother‑in‑law lives…
For where someone lives, Spanish uses vivir en + place:
- vive en Madrid – he/she lives in Madrid
- vivo en un piso pequeño – I live in a small flat
- mi suegra vive en otro barrio – my mother-in-law lives in another neighbourhood
Other prepositions change the meaning:
- vivir a – not used for physical location; used in set expressions (vivir a lo grande = to live large).
- vivir por – suggests “around / near / in the area of”:
- Vive por el centro. – She lives near / around the city centre.
So for the simple “lives in X (place)”, you want vivir en.
Yes, barrio is usually translated as neighbourhood or district.
In Spain:
- barrio = a part of a town or city; a defined area, usually with its own identity.
- Vivo en el barrio de Salamanca.
- vecindario = literally “the group of neighbours”; can mean the area, but is less common than barrio for everyday city areas.
- zona / distrito = more general or administrative terms (“area”, “district”).
So en otro barrio is very natural Spanish for “in another neighbourhood.”
In Spanish, otro already includes the idea of “an/another”, so you don’t add un/una in front:
- otro barrio – another neighbourhood
- otra ciudad – another city
- otros amigos – other / some other friends
Using un otro barrio is normally wrong (it can appear in rare emphatic contexts, but you should avoid it as a learner).
Also, otro agrees in gender and number with the noun:
- otro barrio (masc. sing.)
- otra casa (fem. sing.)
- otros barrios (masc. plural)
- otras casas (fem. plural)
You can absolutely say:
- Mi suegra es muy amable y vive en otro barrio.
Both versions are correct:
- Mi suegra vive en otro barrio y es muy amable.
- Mi suegra es muy amable y vive en otro barrio.
The meaning is basically the same. Changing the order slightly shifts what feels more “important” or what you say first, but there is no major difference in meaning here. Spanish word order is fairly flexible in such simple coordinated sentences.
Spanish is a “pro‑drop” language: it often omits subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, ella…) because the verb ending usually tells you who the subject is.
In Mi suegra vive en otro barrio y es muy amable:
- vive already tells us it’s “he/she/it lives”
- The real subject mi suegra appears once at the start
- Then it’s clear that es muy amable still refers to mi suegra, so no pronoun is needed
You would add ella only for emphasis or contrast:
- Mi suegra vive en otro barrio y ella es muy amable, pero mi suegro no tanto.
(My mother-in-law lives in another neighbourhood and she is very kind, but my father-in-law not so much.)
The difference is the choice between ser and estar with adjectives:
- ser amable = to be a kind person in general (a stable characteristic)
- Mi suegra es muy amable. – My mother-in-law is (a) very kind (person).
- estar amable = to be behaving kindly / to be in a nice mood at the moment, often unusually so
- Hoy mi suegra está muy amable. – Today my mother-in-law is very nice (more than usual / surprisingly so).
In your sentence, we’re describing her general character, so es (from ser) is the natural choice.
In Spanish:
muy is used with adjectives and adverbs:
- muy amable – very kind
- muy alto – very tall
- muy rápido – very fast
mucho/mucha/muchos/muchas are used with nouns or sometimes verbs:
- mucho trabajo – a lot of work
- mucha gente – a lot of people
- trabaja mucho – he/she works a lot
So:
- muy amable ✅
- *mucho amable ❌ (incorrect)
You can combine them in comparative forms:
- mucho más amable – much kinder
Amable is one of the adjectives that ends in -e, and those usually:
- do not change for gender, but
- do change for number.
So:
- Él es muy amable. – He is very kind.
- Ella es muy amable. – She is very kind.
(same form amable for masculine and feminine)
Plural:
- Ellos son muy amables. – They are very kind.
- Mis suegros son muy amables. – My in-laws are very kind.
You just add -s to make the plural: amables.
Yes, there are a couple of typical pronunciation issues:
suegra: [SWE-gra] roughly
- sue- sounds like “swe” in sweet (but shorter)
- g before r is a hard g, like in go
- r here is a single tap (like the quick “tt” sound in American water).
barrio: roughly [BA-rryo]
- rr is a rolled/trilled r, stronger than English r
- b and v are pronounced the same in Spanish (a kind of soft “b”)
- -rio becomes one syllable: [rjo], with the r followed by a y-like sound.
So Mi suegra vive en otro barrio will have:
- a tapped r in suegra,
- a rolled rr in barrio.
You can say both, but there is a small nuance:
- en otro barrio – in another neighbourhood / in a different neighbourhood (neutral, most typical choice)
- en un barrio diferente – in a different neighbourhood (slightly more emphasis on the idea of “different from this one”)
In many contexts, they are interchangeable, but otro barrio is more concise and more common in everyday speech.