Learn Spanish (Latin America): Nuestro hermano bebe café y lee la carta. - Our brother drinks coffee and reads the letter.

Nuestro hermano bebe café y lee la carta.

Our brother drinks coffee and reads the letter.

Breakdown of Nuestro hermano bebe café y lee la carta.

Questions & Answers about Nuestro hermano bebe café y lee la carta.

Why do the verbs bebe and lee both end in -e?

They are both regular -er verbs: beber (to drink) and leer (to read). Since the subject doing the action is nuestro hermano (he), we drop the -er from the full verb and add the matching ending for 'he', which is -e.

Why does lee have two 'e's next to each other? Do I pronounce both?

Yes, you pronounce both slightly, stretching out the 'eh' sound. It has two 'e's because of how the verb is built. The base verb is leer. When you drop the -er ending, you are left with the root le-. Then, you add the -e ending for 'he', giving you lee.

Why do we use nuestro here? Would it change if the sentence was about our sister?

Yes, it would change to nuestra. Nuestro means 'our', and in Spanish, these ownership words must match the gender (masculine/feminine) and amount (singular/plural) of the noun they belong to. Because hermano is a singular masculine noun, we use nuestro. 'Our sister' would be nuestra hermana.

I thought carta sounded like 'card'. Why does it translate to 'letter'?