Learn Spanish (Latin America): La lluvia está cayendo en la ciudad.

La lluvia está cayendo en la ciudad.

The rain is falling in the city.

Breakdown of La lluvia está cayendo en la ciudad.

to be (location/state)

la lluvia

the rain

Questions & Answers about La lluvia está cayendo en la ciudad.

Why is "falling" spelled cayendo with a "y"?

The verb for "to fall" is caer. Normally, for an -er verb, you drop the ending and add -iendo. However, that would give us "caiendo", placing an unaccented "i" between two vowels ("a" and "e"). In Spanish spelling, this "i" changes to a "y", making it cayendo. You'll see this same rule in words like leyendo (reading) and oyendo (hearing).

Why do we use está instead of es in this sentence?

Whenever you are talking about an action that is currently in progress, you always use the verb estar combined with a gerund (the -ando or -iendo form of a verb). Because the rain is falling right now, we use está cayendo.

Why is it la ciudad? I thought feminine words usually end in "a".

While it's true that most feminine words end in "a", there are a few other word endings that are almost always feminine. Spanish nouns ending in -dad, like ciudad (city) or universidad (university), are feminine, which is why it uses la.

How do you pronounce the double L at the start of lluvia?