Breakdown of El canal de nuestra profesora ya tiene muchos suscriptores que quieren aprender español jugando.
Questions & Answers about El canal de nuestra profesora ya tiene muchos suscriptores que quieren aprender español jugando.
In Spanish, every noun has a grammatical gender (masculine or feminine), and the article must match that gender.
- canal (meaning a TV/YouTube channel or a TV station) is masculine in Spanish.
- Therefore, you use the masculine singular definite article el: el canal.
There is a feminine la canal in some very specific regional or technical uses (e.g. a gutter), but for the meaning of a media channel (like YouTube), standard Spanish always uses el canal.
Spanish doesn’t use an apostrophe‑s for possession. Instead, it typically uses:
- [possessed thing] + de + [owner]
So:
- el canal de nuestra profesora = our teacher’s channel
This pattern is very general:
- el coche de Juan = Juan’s car
- la casa de mis padres = my parents’ house
Possessive adjectives (mi, tu, su, nuestro, vuestra, su etc.) agree in gender and number with the noun they modify, not with the person who possesses it.
- The noun profesora is feminine singular.
- So you must use the feminine singular form nuestra (not nuestro, which is masculine).
Examples:
- nuestro profesor (masculine teacher)
- nuestra profesora (feminine teacher)
- nuestros profesores (plural, mixed or all male)
- nuestras profesoras (plural, all female)
ya here means already, and it adds the idea that:
- the channel has reached this number of subscribers sooner than expected or
- compared to a previous moment, the situation has changed.
Without ya:
- El canal de nuestra profesora tiene muchos suscriptores.
→ It has many subscribers (neutral statement).
With ya:
- El canal de nuestra profesora ya tiene muchos suscriptores.
→ It already has many subscribers (implies progress or some surprise/satisfaction about that fact).
You can also move ya:
- El canal de nuestra profesora tiene ya muchos suscriptores.
This is also correct; the meaning is basically the same.
Several points:
Agreement
- suscriptores is masculine plural.
- mucho must agree with it: muchos suscriptores.
mucho vs. muy
- mucho / mucha / muchos / muchas modifies nouns:
- muchos suscriptores, mucha gente, mucho dinero
- muy modifies adjectives or adverbs:
- muy grande, muy rápido, muy bien
- mucho / mucha / muchos / muchas modifies nouns:
So only muchos suscriptores is correct in this sentence.
suscriptores is the plural of suscriptor (subscriber).
- suscriptor = masculine singular
- suscriptora = feminine singular
- suscriptores = masculine plural (or mixed group)
- suscriptoras = feminine plural
In Spanish, the masculine plural is normally used for:
- a group of only men
- a mixed group of men and women
- or when you don’t specify / don’t know the genders
So muchos suscriptores means many subscribers, without specifying gender.
Here que is a relative pronoun introducing a relative clause that gives more information about which subscribers we are talking about.
- suscriptores que quieren aprender español jugando
= subscribers who / that want to learn Spanish by playing
In English you’d normally say who, because they’re people, but Spanish uses que for both who and that in this kind of clause:
- las personas que viven aquí = the people who live here
- el libro que compré = the book that I bought
In Spanish, querer (when it means to want to) is followed directly by an infinitive, without a preposition:
- querer + infinitivo
- Quieren aprender. = They want to learn.
- Quiero comer. = I want to eat.
- Queremos viajar. = We want to travel.
So quieren aprender is correct; quieren a aprender is incorrect in this structure.
When talking about languages after certain verbs like hablar, estudiar, aprender, enseñar, Spanish often omits the article, especially in neutral/general contexts.
- aprender español = to learn Spanish
- estudiar francés = to study French
- hablar inglés = to speak English
You can sometimes use the article (el español) in other contexts (for example, when referring to the language more abstractly: El español es una lengua muy hablada), but in structures like aprender + [language], the normal form is without the article: aprender español.
jugando is the gerund (‑ndo form) of jugar (to play).
In this sentence, it doesn’t work as a noun like English “playing”, but as an adverbial form, describing how they learn:
- aprender español jugando
≈ to learn Spanish *by playing / while playing*
Why not jugar?
- jugar = the infinitive (to play), usually acts more like a noun or complements certain verbs (e.g. quiero jugar).
jugando = gerund, often used to express “by doing / while doing”:
- Aprendo vocabulario leyendo. = I learn vocabulary by reading.
- Me duermo escuchando música. = I fall asleep listening to music.
So jugando is the right form here to express the manner of learning.
The implied subject of jugando is the same as the subject of the main verb, i.e. los suscriptores.
- suscriptores que quieren aprender español jugando
→ subscribers who want to learn Spanish by playing (they are the ones playing)
Spanish gerunds usually share the subject with the main verb unless context clearly indicates otherwise.
The natural, standard order is:
- aprender español jugando
Other options:
- aprender jugando español
This sounds odd and is generally not used; it feels like jugando is stuck between the verb and its object in an unnatural way.
You could slightly rephrase, though:
- quieren aprender español mientras juegan = they want to learn Spanish while they play
- quieren aprender español a través del juego = they want to learn Spanish through play
But if you keep jugando, the idiomatic version is aprender español jugando.