Learn Spanish (Latin America): ¡Qué reglamento tan estricto! Hoy expulsaron al estudiante. - What a strict rule! They expelled the student today.

¡Qué reglamento tan estricto! Hoy expulsaron al estudiante.

What a strict rule! They expelled the student today.

Breakdown of ¡Qué reglamento tan estricto! Hoy expulsaron al estudiante.

Questions & Answers about ¡Qué reglamento tan estricto! Hoy expulsaron al estudiante.

Why is the word tan in ¡Qué reglamento tan estricto! when the English just says "What a strict rule"?

When making an exclamation with Qué that includes both a noun and an adjective, Spanish requires you to put tan (so) or más (more) before the adjective. The literal translation is "What a rule so strict!"

Why do we use al estudiante instead of just el estudiante?

al is the mandatory contraction of the preposition a and the article el. The a here is the "personal a", which is required when the direct object of a verb is a specific person. Since the student is a person receiving the action of being expelled, we must use it.

The translation says "They expelled", but who is the "they" in expulsaron?

In Spanish, the third-person plural (expulsaron) is often used impersonally to say that an action happened without specifying exactly who did it. It works just like the English impersonal "they" and is a very common way to express passive ideas like "The student was expelled."

I usually use regla for "rule". How is reglamento different?

While regla typically refers to a single rule, reglamento usually refers to a formal set of rules, a rulebook, or institutional regulations. In this sentence, it implies that the school's overall policy or code of conduct is very strict.