Breakdown of Invito a la familia al restaurante.
la familia
the family
el restaurante
the restaurant
a
to
al
to the
invitar
to invite
Questions & Answers about Invito a la familia al restaurante.
Why is there an a right before la familia?
Why does it say al restaurante instead of a el restaurante?
In Spanish, whenever the preposition a (to) comes right before the masculine article el (the), they always combine to form the contraction al. You will never see a el written as two separate words!
The translation says 'I am inviting', but isn't invito just 'I invite'?
Yes, invito is the simple present tense. However, in Spanish, the simple present can mean both 'I invite' (a general habit) and 'I am inviting' (something happening right now). You don't always need a continuous tense to express an action happening in the moment like you do in English.
Why isn't the word for 'I' (yo) used at the beginning of the sentence?
Because Spanish verb endings change depending on who is doing the action, the subject pronoun is often dropped. The -o ending on invito already tells us that 'I' (yo) am the one doing the inviting, so adding the pronoun is completely optional and usually left out.
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