Breakdown of Es un gran dilema decidir dónde estudiar el posgrado.
ser
to be
un
a, an (masculine)
grande
big
dónde
where
Questions & Answers about Es un gran dilema decidir dónde estudiar el posgrado.
Why do we use the infinitive estudiar right after dónde instead of conjugating it?
This is an indirect question. When you use a question word like dónde, qué, or cómo followed by an infinitive, it translates to 'where to do something'. Here, dónde estudiar means 'where to study'. This structure is very common when talking about choices or unknown information, especially after verbs like decidir or saber.
Why is it gran dilema and not grande dilema?
Why do we say un dilema if the word ends in an 'a'?
Even though it ends in 'a', dilema is a masculine noun. Many Spanish words that end in -ma and have Greek origins are masculine. You probably already know some common ones like el problema, el tema, and el sistema.
Why is decidir in the infinitive here?
In this sentence, decidir acts as the subject, equivalent to the English gerund 'deciding' or the infinitive 'to decide'. Spanish always uses the infinitive form of verbs when they function as nouns. You could even swap the sentence order and say Decidir dónde estudiar el posgrado es un gran dilema (Deciding where to study the postgraduate degree is a great dilemma).