Breakdown of Estoy revisando los cajones.
los
the (masculine plural)
estar
to be (location/state)
el cajón
the drawer
revisar
to check
Questions & Answers about Estoy revisando los cajones.
Does revisando mean "revising"?
No, this is a "false friend." In Spanish, revisar means to check, inspect, or look through something. So estoy revisando means "I am checking" or "I am looking through." If you want to talk about revising or studying for a test, you would use a word like repasar or estudiar.
Could I just say Reviso los cajones?
Yes, but it changes the feeling of the sentence. Reviso is the simple present tense and means "I check," which sounds more like a habit (e.g., "I check the drawers every day"). Using estoy revisando (present continuous) emphasizes that you are in the middle of doing it right now.
Why doesn't cajones have an accent mark?
The singular word for drawer is cajón. It needs an accent on the "o" to tell you to stress that last syllable. When you make it plural by adding "es" (cajones), the spoken stress stays on the "o"—but because the word now ends in an "s", the natural Spanish pronunciation rules say the second-to-last syllable should be stressed anyway. Since it now follows the rule automatically, the written accent mark is dropped!
How would I say I am checking the drawers for something?
You would use the indefinite word algo (something). You could say Estoy revisando los cajones para buscar algo (I am checking the drawers to look for something). If you open them up and find they are completely empty, you would use the negative word nada (nothing), as in: No hay nada en los cajones (There is nothing in the drawers).
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