Breakdown of El barco está a punto de hundirse y el turista está a punto de ahogarse.
de
from / of
y
and
estar
to be (location/state)
a
to
el barco
the boat
el turista
the tourist
el punto
the dot / the point
ahogarse
to drown, to choke
hundirse
to sink
Questions & Answers about El barco está a punto de hundirse y el turista está a punto de ahogarse.
How does the structure estar a punto de work in this sentence?
The phrase estar a punto de means "to be about to" do something. It is a set phrase, and the preposition de must always be followed by the infinitive (unconjugated) form of the action verb. That is why we use the infinitives hundirse and ahogarse here rather than conjugated forms.
Do hundirse and ahogarse have to include the se at the end?
Yes, they do. In Spanish, hundir means to sink something else (like a submarine sinking a ship), and ahogar means to drown someone else. By adding the pronoun se, the verbs become reflexive, showing that the subjects are undergoing the action themselves: the ship is going down, and the tourist is drowning. English just says "sink" and "drown" for both situations, but Spanish makes this distinction.
Since está is conjugated, can I move the se to the front of the verb phrase?
Absolutely. Because the infinitive is part of a connected verb phrase with a conjugated verb (está), you have two options for the pronoun. You can attach it to the infinitive as done here (está a punto de hundirse), or you can place it right before the conjugated verb (se está a punto de hundir). Both are completely natural and mean the exact same thing.
Why does the sentence say el turista if the word ends in -a?
Learn El barco está a punto de hundirse y el turista está a punto de ahogarse and more in Spanish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free