Breakdown of Lo fascinante es el símbolo sagrado que habían dibujado en el altar.
ser
to be
en
in / on / at
que
that / than
dibujar
to draw
fascinante
fascinating
haber
(auxiliary) have
lo
the ... thing (neuter article)
sagrado
sacred
el símbolo
the symbol
el altar
the altar
Questions & Answers about Lo fascinante es el símbolo sagrado que habían dibujado en el altar.
Why do we use habían dibujado here, and how is it formed?
This is the past perfect tense, which translates to "had drawn". It is used to talk about an action in the past that happened before another point in time. You form it by taking the imperfect tense of the helping verb haber (here, habían for "they") and adding the past participle of the main verb, which in this case is dibujado (from dibujar).
Why does the sentence start with Lo fascinante instead of El fascinante or La fascinante?
When you put the neuter article lo in front of an adjective like fascinante (fascinating), it turns it into a noun phrase meaning "the fascinating thing". Because it refers to an abstract idea rather than a specific masculine or feminine noun, we must use lo instead of el or la.
The English translation says "on the altar", but the Spanish uses en. Shouldn't it be sobre?
While sobre does mean "on top of", en is the most common preposition in Spanish for both "in" and "on". Saying en el altar is the most natural way to express "on the altar" here. You generally only need sobre if you want to strongly emphasize that something is physically resting on top of an object.
How do we know who drew the symbol if the sentence does not say ellos?
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