En el mercadillo, compré un souvenir pequeño para mi profesora y otro para mi vecina.

En el mercadillo means at the street market / flea market and tells you where the buying happened.

• en = in / at
• al = a + el = to the

So:

• En el mercadillo, compré... = At the market, I bought...
• Fui al mercadillo = I went to the market

Use en for location, and a / al for movement toward a place.

Mercadillo usually means a small market, often an open-air market, street market, or sometimes flea market depending on context.

It comes from mercado (market) plus the diminutive ending -illo, which can suggest something smaller or more informal.

In Spain, mercadillo often refers to the regular outdoor market where people buy clothes, accessories, household items, souvenirs, and so on.

The accent mark in compré is important because it shows both pronunciation and meaning.

• compré = I bought
• compre can be a different form, such as a subjunctive or formal command

The accent tells you the stress falls on the last syllable: com-PRÉ.

It is the first-person singular preterite form of comprar:

• yo compré = I bought

Compré is the preterite tense, used for a completed action in the past.

So compré means I bought.

This tense is used when the action is seen as finished:

• Ayer compré un libro. = Yesterday I bought a book.
• En el mercadillo, compré... = At the market, I bought...

It is not the same as:

• compraba = I was buying / I used to buy

Both are possible, but they can sound slightly different.

In Spanish, adjectives often come after the noun:

• un souvenir pequeño = a small souvenir

This is the most neutral, straightforward order.

If you say:

• un pequeño souvenir

it can sound a bit more literary, expressive, or subjective. Sometimes a preposed adjective like pequeño may suggest modest or little rather than just physical size.

For a learner, the safest default is:

• noun + adjective → souvenir pequeño

Yes, souvenir is used in Spanish, including in Spain, especially in tourist contexts. It is understood as a gift or object you buy to remember a place.

You could also say recuerdo, for example:

• Compré un recuerdo pequeño...

But recuerdo can also mean memory, so souvenir is sometimes more specific for the object itself.

In Spain, both can work, but souvenir is very common in everyday use around tourism.

Because pequeño agrees with souvenir, and souvenir is treated as a masculine noun here:

• un souvenir pequeño

Adjectives in Spanish usually agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.

Compare:

• un souvenir pequeño
• una bolsa pequeña

Even though profesora and vecina are feminine, pequeño is describing souvenir, not the people.

Because otro is standing in place of the repeated noun souvenir.

So:

• compré un souvenir pequeño para mi profesora y otro para mi vecina

really means:

• I bought a small souvenir for my teacher and another one for my neighbour

Spanish often omits a repeated noun when it is obvious from context. This is very natural.

You could say the full version:

• ...y otro souvenir para mi vecina but omitting souvenir sounds more natural here.

Because in Spanish, otro normally does not take un before it.

So you say:

• otro libro
• otra casa
• otro para mi vecina

Not:

• un otro libro

This is a very common difference from English. In English we say another, but in Spanish the word otro already carries that idea.

It is used once with each recipient to make the sentence clear:

• para mi profesora
• y otro para mi vecina

Para means for here, showing who each souvenir was intended for.

Repeating para avoids ambiguity and sounds natural. If you removed the second para, the sentence would feel incomplete or unclear.

Because each noun has its own possessive:

• mi profesora
• mi vecina

In Spanish, you normally repeat the possessive with each noun unless the structure clearly allows sharing.

Here, repeating mi makes it clear that one souvenir was for my teacher and the other for my neighbour.

It would sound unnatural to say:

• para mi profesora y vecina

because that could suggest the same person is both your teacher and your neighbour.

Yes.

• profesora = female teacher
• vecina = female neighbour

The masculine forms would be:

• profesor
• vecino

Spanish nouns often show gender this way, and here the feminine forms tell you the speaker is referring to women.

Spanish often moves place or time expressions to the beginning for context or emphasis.

So:

• En el mercadillo, compré...

means something like:

• At the market, I bought...

This word order is natural and helps set the scene first. You could also say:

• Compré un souvenir pequeño para mi profesora y otro para mi vecina en el mercadillo.

That is also grammatical, but it places the location later instead of using it as the opening context.