Word
Empiezan a limpiar el ladrillo de la columna.
Meaning
They are starting to clean the brick of the column.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Empiezan a limpiar el ladrillo de la columna.
de
from / of
a
to
empezar
to start / to begin
limpiar
to clean
Questions & Answers about Empiezan a limpiar el ladrillo de la columna.
If I wanted to focus on the action and say 'The brick is cleaned', how would I use the passive voice?
You would use ser plus the past participle: El ladrillo es limpiado. This describes the action taking place. However, native speakers usually prefer the active voice shown in this sentence, or the passive with se (Se empieza a limpiar el ladrillo).
How would I describe the resulting state once they finish, like 'The brick is clean'?
To describe a resulting state, you typically use estar plus a past participle. But the verb limpiar is a special case: instead of using its past participle (limpiado), you use its related adjective (limpio). So, you would say El ladrillo está limpio.
Why is there an a between empiezan and limpiar?
The verb empezar (to start) requires the preposition a whenever it is followed by an infinitive verb (like limpiar). This is a set grammatical rule in Spanish: empezar a means 'to start doing something'.