En primer lugar, leí el acta.

Leí is the preterite form of leer, so it means I read in the sense of I read it / I did read it at a completed moment in the past.

• leo = I read / I am reading in the present
• leía = I was reading / I used to read
• leí = I read as a finished action

So En primer lugar, leí el acta presents reading the document as one completed step.

The accent mark shows both pronunciation and stress.

In leí, the e and í are pronounced in separate syllables:

• le-í

Without the accent, Spanish spelling rules would tend to make it look like a different sound pattern. The written accent helps show that the i is stressed.

So leí is pronounced roughly leh-EE.

En primer lugar means in the first place, firstly, or first of all.

It is a common way to organize information or list steps. It often appears when someone is explaining a sequence:

• En primer lugar... = first...
• En segundo lugar... = second...
• Por último... = lastly / finally...

It sounds a bit more formal and structured than just primero.

Yes, very often you can.

• En primer lugar, leí el acta.
• Primero, leí el acta.

Both are correct. The difference is mainly one of style:

• primero = simpler, more direct, very common in speech
• en primer lugar = more formal, organized, often used in writing or presentations

This is a very common question.

Acta is indeed a feminine noun. However, feminine singular nouns that begin with a stressed a- or ha- often take el instead of la in the singular to avoid an awkward sound.

So we say:

• el acta
• el agua
• el alma

But the noun is still feminine, which you can see in adjectives and in the plural:

• el acta oficial
• las actas oficiales

So acta is feminine, even though it uses el in the singular.

Acta usually refers to an official written record of something.

Depending on context, it can mean:

• minutes of a meeting
• an official record
• a report
• a formal document certifying something

In many contexts, el acta would be understood as the minutes or the official record.

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

In leí, the verb ending tells us the subject is yo:

• yo leí = I read
• but usually just leí is enough

Spanish does this much more often than English. So En primer lugar, leí el acta is completely natural without yo.

Yes, you could. It is grammatically correct.

But adding yo usually gives extra emphasis, for example:

• to contrast with someone else
• to clarify who did it
• to stress your role

So:

• Leí el acta = neutral, normal
• Yo leí el acta = I read the minutes, not someone else / I personally read them

In Spanish, singular countable nouns usually need an article or another determiner when you mean a specific thing.

So:

• leí el acta = I read the minutes / the record
• leí un acta = I read a record / a set of minutes

Saying just leí acta would sound incomplete or unnatural in normal Spanish.

It is very normal to write a comma there because En primer lugar is an introductory expression.

So this is standard:

• En primer lugar, leí el acta.

You may occasionally see punctuation handled differently in informal writing, but the comma is the usual and recommended choice.

A natural pronunciation would be roughly:

en pree-MEHR loo-GAR, leh-EE el AK-ta

A few notes:

• primer sounds like pree-MEHR
• lugar has stress on the second syllable: loo-GAR
• leí is two syllables: le-Í
• acta is pronounced AK-ta

In Spain, the c in acta is just a normal hard k sound because it comes before t.

Leí is the pretérito indefinido in Spanish grammar, often called the preterite in English grammar explanations.

In Spain, this tense is very common for completed past actions, especially when talking about a specific finished event:

• Ayer leí el acta.
• Esta mañana leí el acta.

In some areas of Spain, speakers may often prefer the present perfect in certain recent-past contexts, but leí is still completely normal and correct for a finished past action.

Yes, sometimes in English the best translation might be the minutes, which is grammatically plural in English, even though Spanish uses singular el acta.

That is just a difference between the languages:

• Spanish: el acta
• English: often the minutes

So even if the meaning shown to the learner is plural in English, the Spanish noun here is still singular.