Questions & Answers about Tenemos que preparar la cena.
Why do we need the word que between tenemos and preparar?
Why isn't preparar conjugated to match "we"?
When you have two verbs working together to express an obligation, only the first one gets conjugated. We change tener to tenemos to show "we" are doing the action, but the second verb, preparar (to prepare), stays in its dictionary form, which is called the infinitive.
Where is the word for "we" in this sentence?
It is built right into the verb! The -emos ending on tenemos tells us that "we" are the ones who have to do it. Because the verb ending makes it obvious, Spanish speakers usually skip saying the pronoun nosotros (we).
Why does it say la cena instead of just cena? In English we just say "prepare dinner".
Spanish uses definite articles like la (the) more often than English does. When talking about meals like dinner (la cena) or breakfast (el desayuno), you almost always include the word for "the" in Spanish.