Learn Spanish (Latin America): El artesano viejo está cosiendo desde hace cuatro horas. - The old artisan has been sewing for four hours.

El artesano viejo está cosiendo desde hace cuatro horas.

The old artisan has been sewing for four hours.

Breakdown of El artesano viejo está cosiendo desde hace cuatro horas.

viejo

old

estar

to be (location/state)

Questions & Answers about El artesano viejo está cosiendo desde hace cuatro horas.

Why does the Spanish sentence use está cosiendo (is sewing) when the English translation says "has been sewing"?

In Spanish, when an action started in the past and is still happening right now, we use the present tense or the present continuous (estar + the -ndo form). Because the artisan is still sewing, we say está cosiendo along with desde hace. English uses "has been doing", but translating that literally to Spanish often sounds unnatural.

Why do we need both desde and hace to say "for four hours"?

To talk about how long an ongoing action has been happening, Spanish uses the fixed phrase desde hace followed by the amount of time. Desde means "since" and hace points to the time that has passed. Together, desde hace cuatro horas translates perfectly to "for four hours" in this context.

What is the infinitive (base form) of cosiendo?

The base verb is coser (to sew). To make the "-ing" form (the gerund) for an -er or -ir verb, you drop the ending and add -iendo. So, coser becomes cosiendo.

Why is it artesano viejo instead of viejo artesano?