Breakdown of Mi amiga prefiere practicar yoga en casa, pero viene al césped del parque cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo.
Questions & Answers about Mi amiga prefiere practicar yoga en casa, pero viene al césped del parque cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo.
In Spanish you normally show possession with a possessive adjective (mi, tu, su, etc.) rather than with an article for people close to you.
- Mi amiga = my (female) friend
- La amiga = the friend (more generic, not clearly “my friend”)
- Just amiga on its own would sound incomplete here.
Also:
- amiga (with -a) tells you the friend is female.
- amigo (with -o) would be a male friend.
So mi amiga is the natural way to say my (female) friend. Subject pronouns like ella are not needed because the verb ending and the noun amiga already tell you who it is.
Spanish usually omits subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, ella…) when they’re not strictly needed, because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.
- (Ella) prefiere practicar yoga…
The form prefiere can only be él/ella/usted in the present, so we know it’s third person singular.
In this sentence we even have the noun mi amiga, so the subject is crystal clear.
You would add ella only for emphasis or contrast:
- Ella prefiere practicar yoga en casa, yo prefiero ir al gimnasio.
But in neutral statements, Spanish prefers no pronoun: Mi amiga prefiere…
After verbs of liking, wanting, or preference (like querer, preferir, poder, saber, necesitar, etc.) you normally use an infinitive when the subject is the same for both verbs.
Pattern:
- [Subject] + preferir (conjugated) + [infinitive]
Examples:
- Mi amiga prefiere practicar yoga.
- Prefiero leer antes de dormir.
- Queremos salir temprano.
If you said prefiere practica, you’d have two conjugated verbs in a row, which is ungrammatical in this structure.
If the subject changed, you’d need que + subjunctive instead:
- Mi amiga prefiere que practiquemos yoga en el parque.
(She prefers that we practise yoga in the park.)
Yes, you can say both:
- prefiere practicar yoga
- prefiere hacer yoga
Both are correct and natural in Spain.
Nuance:
- practicar yoga slightly emphasizes the idea of practising or training a discipline.
- hacer yoga is more general: to do yoga, to do a yoga session.
In everyday speech, both are extremely common; most Spaniards would switch between them without thinking about a difference.
En casa is a set expression meaning at home.
In Spanish, when you mean at home (in one’s own home), you almost always drop the article:
- Estoy en casa. = I’m at home.
- Prefiere practicar yoga en casa. = She prefers to practise yoga at home.
If you specify whose house, you use an article and more detail:
- Practica yoga en la casa de su hermana. = in her sister’s house.
For other specific places (like el parque, el césped), you normally do use articles because you’re talking about a concrete physical place, not the abstract idea of “home”:
- Viene al césped del parque.
- Vamos al parque.
- Están en el gimnasio.
In Spanish, the choice between ir and venir depends on the point of reference, just like in English.
- venir = to come (towards where the speaker or the “group” is / will be)
- ir = to go (to some other place, away from the current reference point)
In the sentence:
- viene al césped del parque cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo
The idea is that “we” are in the park doing the group meditation, and she comes (to where we are). So venir is natural.
If you were describing her movements from a completely external point of view, you could say:
- Ella va al parque cuando hay meditación en grupo.
(She goes to the park when there is group meditation.)
But from the group’s perspective, viene = she comes (to us).
Al and del are obligatory contractions in Spanish:
a + el → al
- viene al césped (not a el césped)
- voy al parque
de + el → del
- el césped del parque (not de el parque)
- la puerta del coche
You must use the contracted forms al and del whenever a or de are followed by the masculine singular article el (except with el as part of a name like El Salvador).
So viene al césped del parque is simply:
- viene a el césped de el parque → spelled viene al césped del parque.
Both are possible and correct, but they emphasize different things:
viene al parque
Focus: she comes to the park in general.viene al césped del parque
Focus: she comes specifically to the grassy area of the park, probably where the group meets.
El césped = the grass / the lawn (in Spain).
So al césped del parque = to the grass (lawn) in the park.
In real usage, people might also say:
- Viene al parque cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo.
- Viene al parque y se sienta en el césped cuando…
The original sentence just makes it explicit that the meeting spot is on the grass.
In Spanish, with cuando-clauses:
For habitual / repeated actions (like a routine), you use the present indicative in both clauses:
- Cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo, viene al césped.
= Whenever we do a group meditation, she comes.
- Cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo, viene al césped.
For one-off future actions that haven’t happened yet, you use subjunctive in the cuando-clause and future (or ir a + infinitive) in the main clause:
- Cuando hagamos una meditación en grupo, vendrá al césped.
= When we (eventually) do a group meditation, she will come.
- Cuando hagamos una meditación en grupo, vendrá al césped.
Cuando haremos is normally wrong. Spanish doesn’t usually put the future tense after cuando in this type of clause.
Here the idea is a habit (she always comes when we do it), so cuando hacemos is correct.
All three are possible, but they have slightly different flavors:
hacemos una meditación
- Very common and natural.
- Emphasizes doing one specific session:
- Hoy hacemos una meditación en grupo. = Today we’ll do a (single) group meditation.
hacemos meditación
- Also correct.
- Sounds a bit more general / activity-like: we do meditation (as an activity) rather than one session.
- In many contexts Spaniards will still say hacer una meditación, because it matches how they talk about other activities:
- hacer una clase
- hacer una sesión
- hacer un ejercicio
meditamos en grupo
- Uses the verb meditar directly.
- Very clear and a bit more “textbook” or formal:
- Mi amiga prefiere practicar yoga en casa, pero viene al césped del parque cuando meditamos en grupo.
So the original hacemos una meditación en grupo is perfectly idiomatic, focusing on doing a specific group meditation session.
en grupo = as a group / in a group manner
It describes the way the activity is done: together, collectively.en un grupo = in a (particular) group
It usually refers to belonging to / being inside a specific group.
In this sentence:
- una meditación en grupo = a group meditation (done together with others).
Compare:
- Estudiamos en grupo. = We study as a group / in groups.
- Estudio en un grupo de cinco personas. = I study in a group of five (I belong to that group).
Yes, that word order is completely correct and very natural:
- Mi amiga prefiere practicar yoga en casa, pero cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo viene al césped del parque.
Spanish allows quite a bit of flexibility with clause order. Moving cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo earlier just shifts the rhythm and slightly emphasizes the condition/time (“when we do a group meditation”) before the main action (“she comes”).
Both versions are fine:
- …pero viene al césped del parque cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo.
- …pero cuando hacemos una meditación en grupo viene al césped del parque.
The meaning doesn’t change.