Breakdown of Él aprende un sexto idioma.
él
he
un
a, an (masculine)
el idioma
the language
aprender
to learn
Questions & Answers about Él aprende un sexto idioma.
Why does sexto come before the noun idioma? I thought adjectives usually go after the noun.
While most descriptive adjectives go after the noun in Spanish, ordinal numbers (like sexto, primero, segundo) are an exception. They almost always go before the noun they describe.
Wait, idioma ends in "-a". Why do we use un and sexto instead of "una sexta"?
Idioma is a rule-breaker! Even though it ends in "-a", it is actually a masculine noun. Because of this, it must use the masculine words un and sexto. Many Spanish words ending in "-ma" (like problema and sistema) are masculine.
Do I need to drop the "o" on sexto to make it "sext idioma", like we do with primer?
Why is there an accent mark on Él?
The accent mark tells us this word is the pronoun él (he). Without the accent mark, el is the masculine word for "the".