Breakdown of Ese idioma es muy difícil para él.
ser
to be
él
he
el idioma
the language
ese
that (masculine)
muy
very
para
for
difícil
difficult
Questions & Answers about Ese idioma es muy difícil para él.
Why is there an accent mark on él in para él?
The accent mark tells us it means "he" or "him". Without the accent mark, el is the word for "the" (like in el perro). Here, after the preposition para (for), we use the pronoun él to mean "him".
Why do we use él here instead of le or lo for "him"?
After prepositions like para (for), de (of/from), or a (to), Spanish uses special prepositional pronouns. For "him", this happens to be exactly the same as the subject pronoun él (he). You would use le or lo when "him" is tied directly to the action of the verb, rather than coming after a preposition like para.
Wait, idioma ends in "-a". Why does it use the masculine word Ese instead of Esa?
Even though it ends in "-a", idioma (language) is actually a masculine noun. Many Spanish words that end in "-ma" are masculine, like el problema and el sistema. Because it is masculine, we must use the masculine word for "that", which is ese.
Why is it Ese idioma and not Eso idioma?
Ese is the masculine word for "that" when you place it directly in front of a noun. Eso is a neutral word used only for abstract ideas, general situations, or unknown objects (like saying "What is that?"). Because we are pointing to a specific masculine noun (idioma), we have to use ese.
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