Question 1

Why does the sentence use los de instead of just saying y de mi nuera for "and my daughter-in-law's"?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, you can't just leave a possessive hanging like we do in English with the apostrophe-s. To avoid repeating los documentos, you use the definite article los (meaning "the ones") followed by de. So los de mi nuera literally translates to "the ones of my daughter-in-law."

Question 2

Would I use el de, la de, or las de if we were talking about something else?

Accepted Answer

Yes! The article has to match the gender and number of the noun you are replacing. Since documentos is masculine and plural, we use los. If you were talking about a single passport (el pasaporte), it would be el de mi nuera. If it were a house (la casa), it would be la de mi nuera.

Question 3

What are the opposite gender words for sobrino (nephew) and nuera (daughter-in-law)?

Accepted Answer

The feminine form of sobrino is sobrina (niece). However, nuera has a completely different word for its masculine counterpart: yerno (son-in-law).

Question 4

Why do we use están instead of son for "are" in this sentence?

Accepted Answer

We use están (from the verb estar) because the sentence is talking about the physical location of the documents. A helpful rule of thumb is that estar is almost always used for locations, whether temporary or permanent.

Question 5

Does en la mesa mean "on the table" or "in the table"?

Accepted Answer

It means "on the table" here. The Spanish preposition en is very versatile and can mean "in," "on," or "at" depending on the context. If you ever need to be ultra-specific to avoid confusion, you can use sobre la mesa (on top of the table).

Los documentos de mi sobrino y los de mi nuera están en la mesa.

Breakdown of Los documentos de mi sobrino y los de mi nuera están en la mesa.

Questions & Answers about Los documentos de mi sobrino y los de mi nuera están en la mesa.

Learn Los documentos de mi sobrino y los de mi nuera están en la mesa and more in Spanish