Word
El líder nos cuenta que van a despedir al asistente del gerente.
Meaning
The leader tells us that they are going to fire the manager's assistant.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of El líder nos cuenta que van a despedir al asistente del gerente.
ir
to go
a
to
al
to the
del
from the / of the
Questions & Answers about El líder nos cuenta que van a despedir al asistente del gerente.
Why do we use nos cuenta que instead of nos dice que here?
In basic reported speech, you can use several verbs to pass on information. While decir (to say/tell) is very common, contar (to tell/recount) is often used when someone is sharing news, gossip, or a status update. The grammatical structure remains exactly the same: a reporting verb followed by que and the reported action.
Why does nos come before the verb cuenta?
Nos is an indirect object pronoun meaning 'to us'. In Spanish, these pronouns almost always go immediately before the conjugated verb. So, 'tells us' translates to nos cuenta.
Why is there an al before asistente?
This is a mix of two rules. First, Spanish uses a 'personal a' right before a direct object if it refers to a specific person (since they are firing a person, not a thing). Second, when the preposition a is followed by the masculine article el (the), they are forced to combine into the contraction al.
How do we get del gerente for 'the manager's'?
Spanish does not use an apostrophe-s for possession. Instead, you phrase it as 'the assistant of the manager'. Just like with al, when the preposition de (of) is followed by el (the), they must combine to form the contraction del.