Word
A lo mejor el baúl le pertenece a nuestro abuelo.
Meaning
Maybe the trunk belongs to our grandfather.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of A lo mejor el baúl le pertenece a nuestro abuelo.
el abuelo
the grandfather
nuestro
our
le
to him / to her / to you (formal)
a lo mejor
maybe
Questions & Answers about A lo mejor el baúl le pertenece a nuestro abuelo.
Does a lo mejor literally translate to "at the best"?
Yes, word-for-word it translates to "at the best," but it is used as a very common fixed expression in Spanish meaning "maybe" or "perhaps."
Does the phrase a lo mejor require the subjunctive mood?
No, a lo mejor is a special phrase for "maybe" that is almost always followed by the indicative mood. Even though it expresses doubt or uncertainty, you use the normal present tense (pertenece) here instead of the subjunctive.
Does pertenecer always need the preposition a?
Yes, when you want to say that something belongs to someone, you must use pertenecer a. The verb governs this preposition, meaning they act as a packaged deal, so you cannot drop the a before the owner.
Why do we use le pertenece a instead of just pertenece a?
In Spanish, when a sentence has an indirect object introduced by a (like a nuestro abuelo), it is extremely common to also include the indirect object pronoun (le) earlier in the sentence. Because pertenecer a points to who possesses the item, it naturally takes this "redundant" pronoun.