Breakdown of Él es un amigo íntimo y llevo cinco años sin hablar con él.
ser
to be
él
he
y
and
el amigo
the male friend
un
a, an (masculine)
hablar
to speak / to talk
el año
year
con
with
cinco
five
sin
without
llevar
to have been (doing) for a time
íntimo
close (relationships)
Questions & Answers about Él es un amigo íntimo y llevo cinco años sin hablar con él.
Why does the sentence use llevo instead of a literal translation of 'I haven't'?
The verb llevar literally means 'to carry,' but Spanish uses it heavily to express how long a situation has been going on. To say you haven't done something for a certain amount of time, the formula is llevar + [time] + sin + [infinitive]. Here, llevo cinco años sin hablar translates naturally to 'I haven't spoken in five years.'
Why do we use the infinitive hablar instead of the gerund hablando after sin?
In English, we say 'without speaking' (using an -ing word). However, in Spanish, whenever a verb directly follows a preposition like sin (without), de (of), or para (for), it must always be in its pure infinitive form. Therefore, sin hablar is the only correct option here.
Does amigo íntimo mean they are romantically involved?
Why is there an accent mark on the word él at the beginning and end of the sentence?
The accent mark is a spelling rule used to distinguish the pronoun él (he or him) from the masculine 'the' (el). Since both instances in this sentence refer to a person ('He is' and 'with him'), the accent is required.
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