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La abuela tiene el gato y el perro.

La abuela tiene el gato y el perro.
The grandmother has the cat and the dog.
From Lesson 3:Basic sentences and negation (no)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of La abuela tiene el gato y el perro.

y
and
la abuela
the grandmother
tener
to have
el perro
the dog
el gato
the cat

Questions & Answers about La abuela tiene el gato y el perro.

Does Spanish follow the same Subject-Verb-Object word order as English here?
Yes! For basic statements like this one, Spanish uses the exact same order as English. La abuela (the subject) comes first, followed by the action verb tiene, and ending with the things she has, el gato y el perro (the objects).
How would I make this sentence negative to say she DOES NOT have the cat and the dog?
To make a basic statement negative in Spanish, you just place the word no directly before the conjugated verb. You would say La abuela no tiene el gato y el perro.
Why is the verb tiene instead of tengo?
Tiene is the form of the verb tener (to have) used for 'he', 'she', or 'it'. Since our subject is La abuela (she), we use tiene. You would use tengo if the subject were 'I' (yo).
Do I really have to say el twice for both animals?
Yes. In English, we often skip the second article and say 'the cat and dog', but in Spanish, it is a strict rule to include the article (el, la, los, or las) before each individual noun in a list.

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