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No puedo caminar porque me duele la pierna.

No puedo caminar porque me duele la pierna.
I cannot walk because my leg hurts.
From Lesson 49:Verbs like gustar (encantar, doler)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about No puedo caminar porque me duele la pierna.

Why is it me duele instead of "yo duelo"?
The verb doler (to hurt/to ache) works just like gustar. Instead of saying "I hurt," Spanish phrases it as "the leg is causing pain to me." Here, me means "to me," and duele is the "it" form of the verb because the subject actually doing the action is the leg!
Why does the sentence use la pierna (the leg) instead of mi pierna (my leg)?
In Spanish, when you talk about body parts, you usually use the definite article (el, la, los, las) rather than possessive words like mi (my). Because you already used the pronoun me earlier in the sentence, it is perfectly clear to the listener whose leg is hurting.
If both of my legs hurt, how would this sentence change?
Because the body part is the subject with verbs like doler, the verb has to match the number of things hurting. If both legs hurt, you would say me duelen las piernas. The -n at the end of duelen shows that multiple things are causing the pain.
Why is caminar (to walk) left in its basic dictionary form?
When two verbs go right next to each other to express a single idea, you usually only conjugate (change) the first one. Since we already changed the first verb to puedo (I can), the second verb, caminar, stays in its basic infinitive form.

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