Question 1

Wait, is habla a command here? I thought we were learning imperatives.

Accepted Answer

It looks exactly like the informal tú command for "speak," but here it is just the regular present tense: "the judge speaks." Because El juez is the subject of the sentence, we know it is a statement. If you wanted to politely command the judge to speak using the formal usted imperative you're learning, you would use hable: Señor juez, ¡hable con el testigo!

Question 2

Why isn't there a "personal a" before el testigo since the witness is a person?

Accepted Answer

We only use the "personal a" when a person is the direct object of a verb (the one directly receiving the action). Here, el testigo comes right after the preposition con (with). You don't need to add an a after prepositions like con or de.

Question 3

If the witness were a woman, would it be la testiga inocenta?

Accepted Answer

Not quite! The noun for "witness" is always testigo. To show it's a woman, you only change the "the" part: la testigo. Furthermore, adjectives that end in -e like inocente don't change for gender, so a female innocent witness is simply la testigo inocente.

Question 4

How do you make words like juez plural?

Accepted Answer

For nouns that end in -z, you change the z to a c and add -es. So, one judge is el juez, but multiple judges are los jueces. (Bonus note: if you want to specify a female judge, you can use la jueza!).

El juez habla con el testigo inocente.

Breakdown of El juez habla con el testigo inocente.

Questions & Answers about El juez habla con el testigo inocente.

Learn El juez habla con el testigo inocente and more in Spanish