Mi abrigo es para ti, y el de mi hermano es para él.
My coat is for you, and my brother's is for him.
Breakdown of Mi abrigo es para ti, y el de mi hermano es para él.
ser
to be
él
he
de
from / of
y
and
el hermano
the brother
mi
my
para
for
ti
you
el abrigo
coat
Questions & Answers about Mi abrigo es para ti, y el de mi hermano es para él.
Why do we say el de instead of just translating 'my brother's'?
In English, you can add an apostrophe-S to show possession, like 'my brother's'. Spanish doesn't have an apostrophe-S. Instead, you have to say 'the one of my brother'. Because we are talking about an abrigo (coat), which is masculine and singular, we use el (the) plus de (of) to get el de mi hermano.
Could I say el abrigo de mi hermano instead of el de mi hermano?
Why is it para ti but para él? Shouldn't it be para tú?
After prepositions like para (for) or de (of), Spanish uses special pronouns. For the informal 'you', the word tú changes to ti. But for 'him', the pronoun doesn't change at all: it stays él.
Why does él have an accent mark at the end of the sentence, but el doesn't in the middle?
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