La ciclista deja la bicicleta junto a la puerta y entra en la cafetería.

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Breakdown of La ciclista deja la bicicleta junto a la puerta y entra en la cafetería.

• la bicicleta: the bicycle
• la puerta: the door
• dejar: to leave

Questions & Answers about La ciclista deja la bicicleta junto a la puerta y entra en la cafetería.

Why does the sentence use la ciclista? Does ciclista mean a female cyclist only?

Ciclista is a common-gender noun in Spanish. That means the noun itself stays the same for a man or a woman, and the article tells you the gender:

• el ciclista = the male cyclist
• la ciclista = the female cyclist

So in this sentence, la ciclista tells us the cyclist is female.

Why are there so many las in the sentence?

Spanish uses definite articles more often than English does. Here we have:

• la ciclista
• la bicicleta
• la puerta
• la cafetería

Each one means the. In English, we might sometimes leave the out depending on context, but Spanish usually keeps it when referring to specific things.

What does deja mean here?