Breakdown of Necesito llamar a los colegas del equipo.
necesitar
to need
los
the (masculine plural)
a
to
del
from the / of the
llamar
to call / to attract (attention)
el equipo
the team
el colega
the colleague
Questions & Answers about Necesito llamar a los colegas del equipo.
Why is there an a before los colegas?
This is the personal a. In Spanish, when the direct object of a verb is a specific person or group of people, you must put the preposition a right before them. Since los colegas (the colleagues) are people, they require this a. It doesn't translate to anything in English. (Note: Since this lesson focuses on prepositions with people, remember that relative pronouns following this personal a would be quien or quienes!)
Colegas ends in an "-a". Why does it use the masculine article los?
Why does the sentence say del equipo instead of de el equipo?
In Spanish, whenever the preposition de (of/from) is followed directly by the masculine singular article el (the), they are forced to combine into the contraction del. It is grammatically incorrect to leave them separate as de el.
Why isn't llamar conjugated?
When two verbs go together to form one idea like "I need to call", only the first verb changes to match the person doing the action. Here, the first verb is conjugated as necesito (I need), so the second verb, llamar (to call), must stay in its unconjugated dictionary form (the infinitive).
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