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El submarino no puede alcanzar esa profundidad crítica hoy.

El submarino no puede alcanzar esa profundidad crítica hoy.
The submarine cannot reach that critical depth today.
From Lesson 224:Initial causes (como)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about El submarino no puede alcanzar esa profundidad crítica hoy.

Why use alcanzar here instead of llegar a to mean reach?
While both can translate to reach, alcanzar is typically used when talking about hitting a specific limit, level, speed, or goal (like a critical depth). Llegar a is generally used for physically arriving at a destination.
Why do we use esa instead of ese for that depth?
The word profundidad (depth) is feminine. A helpful rule of thumb is that almost all Spanish nouns ending in -dad, like ciudad (city) or universidad (university), are feminine. So, it requires the feminine demonstrative adjective esa.
Why does crítica have an accent mark?
In Spanish, words are categorized by where their spoken stress falls. Crítica is stressed on the third-to-last syllable (crí-ti-ca). Words with this stress pattern always require a written accent mark to show that they break the standard pronunciation rules.
Could I say esa crítica profundidad instead?
It is much more natural to say esa profundidad crítica. In Spanish, descriptive adjectives that classify something or give literal, objective information usually go after the noun. Placing it before the noun would sound very poetic or subjective.

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