Mi prima quiere estudiar repostería.

Questions & Answers about Mi prima quiere estudiar repostería.

Why is it mi prima and not mí prima?

Because mi here is a possessive adjective meaning my.

So in Mi prima, mi has no accent mark.

Does mi change for masculine and feminine nouns?

No. Mi stays the same for both masculine and feminine singular nouns.

  • mi primo = my male cousin
  • mi prima = my female cousin

Only the noun changes for gender, not mi.
In the plural, it becomes mis:

  • mis primos
  • mis primas
What exactly does prima mean?

Prima means female cousin. It is the feminine form of primo.

  • primo = male cousin
  • prima = female cousin

So Spanish makes the cousin’s gender explicit here, unlike English, which just says cousin.

Why is it quiere and not querer?

Because quiere is the conjugated form of the verb querer for él/ella/usted in the present tense.

The verb querer means to want or sometimes to love depending on context.

Present tense:

  • yo quiero
  • quieres
  • él/ella/usted quiere
  • nosotros/nosotras queremos
  • vosotros/vosotras queréis
  • ellos/ellas/ustedes quieren

Since the subject is mi prima = she, the correct form is quiere.

Why does querer change from e to ie in quiere?

Because querer is a stem-changing verb in the present tense.

Its stem changes:

  • quer-quier-

So:

  • yo quiero
  • quieres
  • él/ella quiere
  • ellos quieren

But the change does not happen in nosotros or vosotros:

  • nosotros queremos
  • vosotros queréis

This is a very common pattern in Spanish.

Why is it quiere estudiar and not something like quiere estudia?

After a conjugated verb like quiere, the next verb stays in the infinitive.

So:

In Spanish, you do not need a separate word for to before the second verb in this kind of structure. The infinitive itself already gives that idea.

Why is there no word for to between quiere and estudiar?

Because Spanish often uses a structure that is simply:

conjugated verb + infinitive

So:

  • quiere estudiar = wants to study
  • necesita trabajar = needs to work
  • prefiere esperar = prefers to wait

English uses to before the second verb, but Spanish usually does not in this pattern.

Why is there no article before repostería?

Because when Spanish talks about studying a subject in a general sense, it often does not use an article.

So:

  • estudiar repostería
  • estudiar medicina
  • estudiar derecho
  • estudiar música

This is similar to English, where we also usually say study medicine, not study the medicine.

What does repostería mean grammatically here?

Here, repostería is a noun referring to the field or subject of pastry-making / confectionery / baking sweets.

In this sentence, it works like the thing she wants to study.

So grammatically:

Why does repostería have an accent mark?

The accent mark shows where the stress goes: re-po-ste-RÍ-a.

Without going too deep into spelling rules, the written accent is needed to show the correct pronunciation and stress pattern.

It also helps indicate that -ía is pronounced clearly, with the stress on .

Why doesn’t the sentence include ella?

Because Spanish often omits subject pronouns when the verb form already makes the subject clear.

Instead of saying:

Spanish very naturally says:

  • Mi prima quiere estudiar repostería

And even if the subject were already known, Spanish could simply say:

  • Quiere estudiar repostería

This is normal because Spanish verb endings carry a lot of information.

Could querer mean to love here?

Not in this sentence. Here querer + infinitive clearly means to want to do something.

When querer means to love / care for someone, it usually appears with a direct object, often a person:

  • Quiere a su prima = He/She loves his/her cousin

So the structure changes the meaning:

  • querer + infinitive = to want to do
  • querer + noun/person = often to love / want
Is the word order fixed, or could it change?

The normal, neutral order is:

Mi prima quiere estudiar repostería.

That said, Spanish can sometimes move parts around for emphasis, but this is the most natural basic order for a learner:

subject + verb + infinitive + object

So this sentence is a very standard model to copy.

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