Question 1

Why is the verb duelen plural if it's talking about one grandfather?

Accepted Answer

Because doler (to hurt/ache) works just like gustar. In Spanish, you don't say 'he hurts his legs'. Instead, the structure is more like 'the legs cause pain to him'. Since las piernas (the legs) are doing the hurting, and there is more than one leg, the verb must be plural: duelen.

Question 2

Why do we need both A mi abuelo and le in this sentence?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, when using verbs like gustar or doler, you always need the indirect object pronoun, which is le (to him) in this case. However, le can mean 'to him', 'to her', or 'to you'. We add A mi abuelo at the beginning just to clarify exactly who we are talking about.

Question 3

Why does it use las piernas (the legs) instead of sus piernas (his legs)?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, when you talk about body parts, you usually use the definite articles (el, la, los, las) rather than possessive words like mi or su. The pronoun le already makes it perfectly clear whose legs are hurting!

Question 4

The dictionary says the verb is doler, so why is it spelled duelen here?

Accepted Answer

Doler is a stem-changing verb. When you conjugate it, the o in the root changes to ue. You have probably seen this same 'o to ue' change in other common verbs like poder (to be able to) and dormir (to sleep).

A mi abuelo le duelen las piernas.

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