Word
El autobús tarda veintidós minutos en llegar al campus si no hay tráfico.
Meaning
The bus takes twenty-two minutes to get to campus if there is no traffic.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of El autobús tarda veintidós minutos en llegar al campus si no hay tráfico.
en
in
al
to the
hay
there is/are
no
not
Questions & Answers about El autobús tarda veintidós minutos en llegar al campus si no hay tráfico.
Why is it el autobús and not just autobús?
In Spanish, nouns usually need an article more often than in English.
Here, el autobús can mean:
- a specific bus already understood from context, or
- the bus as a service/route in a general sense
So El autobús tarda veintidós minutos... is a very natural way to say The bus takes twenty-two minutes...
Spanish normally does not drop the article as easily as English does.
What does tarda mean here?
Tarda is the he/she/it form of tardar in the present tense.
In this sentence, tardar means to take a certain amount of time.
So:
- El autobús tarda veintidós minutos = The bus takes twenty-two minutes
A very common pattern is:
- tardar + amount of time + en + infinitive
- Tardo diez minutos en llegar. = It takes me ten minutes to arrive.
Why is it tarda veintidós minutos with no preposition before the time?