Learn Spanish (Latin America): Mi amigo está en el metro.

Mi amigo está en el metro.

My friend is in the subway.

Breakdown of Mi amigo está en el metro.

to be (location/state)

Questions & Answers about Mi amigo está en el metro.

Does en mean in or on here?

In Spanish, the preposition en covers both in and on, as well as at. Whether your friend is physically inside the subway station or riding on the subway train, you just use en.

Why does this sentence use está instead of es?

We use está (from the verb estar) because it tells us where someone is located. Whenever you talk about physical locations, like being in the subway, you always use estar.

I learned that we say en metro to mean by subway. Why is there an el in this sentence?

When you talk about the general method of transportation, you drop the article and just say en metro. But in this sentence, you are talking about being inside a specific physical space (in the subway), so you need the word for the, which is el.