Breakdown of Eres el testigo que el guardia necesita.
ser
to be
necesitar
to need
que
that / than
el testigo
the witness
Questions & Answers about Eres el testigo que el guardia necesita.
In English I could just say "You are the witness the guard needs." Can I leave out que in Spanish?
No, you can never drop the relative pronoun que in Spanish. Even though English often skips the word "that" or "who" when linking two parts of a sentence, Spanish always requires que to connect them.
Since "the witness" is a person, shouldn't we use quien (who) instead of que (that)?
You can actually use que for both people and things! When a relative pronoun comes immediately after the noun it describes (like right after el testigo), que is the most natural and common choice in everyday Spanish, even for people.
The word guardia ends in "-a". Why does it use the masculine article el?
Is testigo the same kind of word? If the witness was female, would it be la testigo or la testiga?