Breakdown of Empezamos a practicar pintura este fin de semana.
practicar
to practice
a
to
empezar
to start / to begin
el fin de semana
the weekend
este
this
la pintura
painting
Questions & Answers about Empezamos a practicar pintura este fin de semana.
Why do we need the word a between empezamos and practicar?
In Spanish, when you want to say you "start doing something", you use the verb empezar followed by the preposition a and then an infinitive verb (the basic, unconjugated form, like practicar). You can't just put the two verbs together directly; the a is the required bridge!
Wait, doesn't empezamos mean "we started" in the past tense?
It can! For -ar verbs like empezar, the "we" form is exactly the same in both the present tense and the simple past (preterite) tense. You have to look at the rest of the sentence to know which one it is. Here, este fin de semana (this weekend) tells us it is an upcoming plan, so it translates to the present "we start" or "we are starting".
Why does the translation say "We are starting" instead of using estamos empezando?
In Spanish, the simple present tense (empezamos) is very often used to talk about planned events in the near future. While you could use the progressive form (estamos empezando), using the simple present is much more common for scheduled plans like this.
Why is there no la before pintura?
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