Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Detrás del arbusto vimos un conejo pequeño.

Breakdown of Detrás del arbusto vimos un conejo pequeño.

Why does the sentence start with Detrás del arbusto instead of starting with the verb?

Spanish is more flexible than English with word order. The most neutral order would be something like:

Vimos un conejo pequeño detrás del arbusto.

But putting Detrás del arbusto first is very natural if the speaker wants to set the scene first, a bit like:

Behind the bush, we saw a small rabbit.

So this word order adds focus to the location, but it does not change the basic meaning.

Why is it del arbusto and not de el arbusto?

Because de + el contracts to del in Spanish.

So:

That means:

This contraction is required with el when it is the article the.

Why is there a de after detrás?

In Spanish, detrás normally works with de when you say what something is behind.

So:

You should learn detrás de as a set phrase.