Learn Spanish (Latin America): Antes de la película, comimos en un restaurante. - Before the movie, we ate in a restaurant.

Antes de la película, comimos en un restaurante.

Before the movie, we ate in a restaurant.

Breakdown of Antes de la película, comimos en un restaurante.

Questions & Answers about Antes de la película, comimos en un restaurante.

Why is it antes de and not just antes?

When "before" is followed by a noun (like la película), you must use antes de. You only use antes by itself if you're just saying "before" without mentioning the thing that comes next, like in Comimos antes (We ate before).

Wait, is "we eat" (present tense) comimos or comemos?

A lot of learners mix this up! For -er verbs like comer, the present tense "we eat" is comemos, but the past tense "we ate" is comimos. (It's only -ar and -ir verbs, like hablar and vivir, where the present and past "we" forms look exactly the same: hablamos and vivimos).

Why does it say en un restaurante instead of a un restaurante to mean "at a restaurant"?

In English, we often say we ate "at" a restaurant. In Spanish, when you are physically located somewhere doing an activity, you use en (which can mean in, on, or at). You generally use a (to) to show movement towards a place, like Fuimos a un restaurante (We went to a restaurant).

Why is the word "we" (nosotros) missing before comimos?

In Spanish, subject pronouns like nosotros are optional because the verb ending in comimos already tells us exactly who did the eating. It's very common for native speakers to leave out the pronoun unless they need to add special emphasis or clarify who is doing the action.