Learn Spanish (Latin America): Ella está indecisa porque tiene un gran dilema. - She is undecided because she has a great dilemma.

Ella está indecisa porque tiene un gran dilema.

She is undecided because she has a great dilemma.

Breakdown of Ella está indecisa porque tiene un gran dilema.

Questions & Answers about Ella está indecisa porque tiene un gran dilema.

Why does this sentence use está indecisa instead of es indecisa?

We use estar here because it describes her current state: she is undecided right now about a specific dilemma. If we used ser (ella es indecisa), it would describe her personality, meaning she is an indecisive person in general.

Why is it gran dilema instead of grande dilema?

The adjective grande drops its final -de and becomes gran whenever it is placed directly before a singular noun. This happens whether the noun is masculine or feminine. If it came after the noun, it would stay as dilema grande.

The word dilema ends in -a. Why is it un dilema instead of una dilema?

Many Spanish nouns that end in -ma are actually masculine because they come from Greek. You have likely seen this before with words like el problema, el tema, and el sistema. Because it is masculine, it uses the article un.