El animal herido no comerá hasta que lo alimentes.
The injured animal will not eat until you feed it.
Breakdown of El animal herido no comerá hasta que lo alimentes.
no
no, not
comer
to eat
el animal
the animal
que
that / than
lo
it / him (direct object)
hasta
until / as far as
alimentar
to feed
herido
injured
Questions & Answers about El animal herido no comerá hasta que lo alimentes.
Why do we use the subjunctive alimentes here instead of the normal present tense alimentas?
Because the action of feeding hasn't happened yet. When you use temporal phrases like hasta que (until) to talk about a future event, Spanish requires the present subjunctive. If you were stating a regular routine, like an animal that never eats until you feed it every day, you would use the indicative alimentas.
What is the grammatical trigger in this sentence that tells us to use the subjunctive?
The future tense verb comerá (will eat) in the main clause. It establishes that the whole scenario is happening in the future, which is the trigger for using the subjunctive alimentes after hasta que.
Why does the pronoun lo come before alimentes? Can I attach it to the end of the verb?
No, you cannot attach it to the end here. Object pronouns like lo must be placed immediately before conjugated verbs. You can only attach them to the end of infinitives, gerunds (the -ando or -iendo forms), and affirmative commands. Since alimentes is conjugated, lo stays in front.
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