Question 1

Why is enseñar not conjugated here?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, when you want to say you "want to do" something, you conjugate the verb querer (to want) and leave the second verb in its base form, or infinitive. Here, quieren tells us who wants (they want), and enseñar stays in its infinitive form to mean "to teach".

Question 2

Why is it quieren instead of queren?

Accepted Answer

The verb querer has a stem change. For most forms (like I, you, he, she, and they), the e in the middle changes to ie. So, for ellos, it becomes quieren. Forms like "we" don't have this change and stay regular, like queremos.

Question 3

Doesn't en mean "in"? Why does the translation say "at the university"?

Accepted Answer

The Spanish preposition en is very versatile and can mean "in", "on", or "at" depending on the context. When talking about being present at a location or institution, like en la universidad, it translates naturally to "at the university" in English.

Question 4

Is universidad always a feminine word?

Accepted Answer

Yes! A helpful rule in Spanish is that almost all words ending in -dad are feminine, which is why it uses la. These words often match English words ending in "-ty", like university (universidad) and city (ciudad).

Question 5

Can I drop Ellos and just start the sentence with Quieren?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can. In Spanish, the verb ending usually tells you who the subject is. However, because quieren can mean "they want" or "you all want" (ustedes quieren), keeping Ellos helps make it perfectly clear that we mean "they".

Ellos quieren enseñar en la universidad.

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