Breakdown of Ella invita al estudiante a salir con la familia.
el estudiante
the student
ella
she
la familia
the family
con
with
Questions & Answers about Ella invita al estudiante a salir con la familia.
We are learning about conmigo and contigo. Why don't we merge con and la familia?
The special merged words are only used for "with me" (conmigo) and "with you" (contigo). For almost everything else, like "with the family," you just keep them separate and use the regular preposition con followed by the noun phrase (la familia).
Why does it say al estudiante instead of just el estudiante?
Two rules are combining here! First, because the student is a person receiving the action, Spanish requires the "personal a" before the noun. Second, whenever the preposition a is followed directly by the masculine word for "the" (el), they must merge into the contraction al.
Why is there a second a before salir?
In Spanish, the verb invitar (to invite) requires the preposition a when you are inviting someone to do an action. So, invitar a followed by an unconjugated verb (like salir) means "to invite to [do something]".