Word
Espero que el grupo empiece a llegar puntual.
Meaning
I hope the group starts to arrive punctually.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Espero que el grupo empiece a llegar puntual.
llegar
to arrive
empezar
to start / to begin
esperar
to wait / to hope / to expect
que
that / than
Questions & Answers about Espero que el grupo empiece a llegar puntual.
Why do we use empiece instead of empieza here?
This sentence uses the present subjunctive because of the phrase espero que (I hope that). When you express a hope, desire, or expectation for someone else to do something, Spanish requires the subjunctive mood for the second verb.
Why does empezar change to empiece? Where do the "ie" and "c" come from?
This verb has two changes here! First, it is a stem-changing verb, so the second e becomes ie in the middle. Second, to keep the soft sound of the z when adding the subjunctive -e ending, Spanish spelling rules require the z to change to a c.
Why do we need the little word a before llegar?
The verb empezar (to start) requires the preposition a whenever it connects to another verb in its basic, unconjugated form (the infinitive). The pattern is always empezar a plus an infinitive verb, which is why we say empiece a llegar.
Why is the verb empiece singular if a group has multiple people in it?
In Spanish, collective nouns like el grupo (the group) or la familia (the family) are treated as grammatically singular subjects. Even though they refer to multiple people, the word itself is singular, so it uses the singular verb form.