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Nos sentamos cerca de la puerta.

Nos sentamos cerca de la puerta.
We sit down near the door.
From Lesson 58:Reflexive pronouns and verbs (me, te, se, nos)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of Nos sentamos cerca de la puerta.

la puerta
the door
cerca
close / near
sentarse
to sit down

Questions & Answers about Nos sentamos cerca de la puerta.

Why do we use nos here instead of just saying sentamos?
In Spanish, the verb for 'to sit down' is sentarse, which is a reflexive verb. Literally, it means 'to seat oneself.' Because 'we' are doing the sitting, we use the reflexive pronoun nos (ourselves). If you just say sentamos without nos, it means you are seating someone else, like a child.
I learned that this verb has an 'ie' in it, like me siento (I sit). Why doesn't sentamos have an 'ie'?
You are right that sentarse is a stem-changing verb where the e changes to ie. However, in the present tense, the nosotros (we) form never gets this stem change. It stays regular, which is why it is nos sentamos and not nos sientamos.
Why is there a de after cerca? Doesn't cerca already mean 'near'?
Yes, cerca means 'near' or 'close.' But in Spanish, when you want to say what something is near to, you use the fixed phrase cerca de. You can think of it like the English phrase 'close to' — you wouldn't say 'we sit close the door,' you need the 'to' (de).
Is it wrong to put nosotros at the beginning of this sentence?
It is not wrong at all! You can absolutely say Nosotros nos sentamos cerca de la puerta. However, because the verb ending -amos and the pronoun nos already make it perfectly clear that 'we' are the subject, native speakers usually drop the nosotros to save time.

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