Breakdown of No debes pisar el cristal roto.
no
no, not
romper
to break
deber
must / should
el cristal
the glass
Questions & Answers about No debes pisar el cristal roto.
What verb does roto come from?
It comes from romper (to break). Roto is an irregular past participle. Instead of ending in "-ido" like regular "-er" verbs, it changes completely!
Why is roto placed after cristal, and why does it end in "-o"?
In this sentence, the past participle roto is acting as an adjective to describe the noun cristal (glass). Descriptive adjectives usually come after the noun in Spanish. It ends in "-o" because it has to match el cristal, which is masculine and singular. If it were a broken window (la ventana), it would be rota.
Why isn't pisar conjugated here?
When two verbs are used together to express a single idea, only the first one is conjugated. Here, debes (you must) is already conjugated for "you", so the second verb pisar (to step) stays in its infinitive (unconjugated) form.
I learned the word vaso for "glass". Why is cristal used here?