Word
Cuando las mariposas vuelan, visitan las flores.
Meaning
When butterflies fly, they visit the flowers.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Cuando las mariposas vuelan, visitan las flores.
las
the (feminine plural)
la flor
the flower
visitar
to visit
cuando
when (statement)
Questions & Answers about Cuando las mariposas vuelan, visitan las flores.
Since this lesson is about the subjunctive, why is vuelan in the indicative here?
We use the indicative after cuando when we are talking about facts, general truths, or habits—things that regularly happen. We only use the subjunctive after cuando if the action hasn't happened yet (like referring to a specific future event). Since butterflies visiting flowers is a general fact, both vuelan and visitan stay in the present indicative.
The English translation says 'butterflies' and 'flowers,' but the Spanish uses las mariposas and las flores. Why are the articles added?
In Spanish, whenever you talk about a noun in a general sense (like all butterflies or all flowers), you must include the definite article (el, la, los, or las). English usually drops the article for general plurals, which is why it doesn't appear in the translation.
Why is the verb vuelan instead of 'volan'?
The infinitive verb for 'to fly' is volar. In the present tense, it has a stem change where the o changes to ue in most forms. This gives us vuelan for 'they fly.' (Remember, the nosotros form keeps the original vowel: volamos).
Why is there no word for 'they' before visitan?