Learn Spanish (Latin America): Saltó sin paracaídas; fue muy arriesgado. - He jumped without a parachute; it was very risky.

Saltó sin paracaídas; fue muy arriesgado.

He jumped without a parachute; it was very risky.

Breakdown of Saltó sin paracaídas; fue muy arriesgado.

Questions & Answers about Saltó sin paracaídas; fue muy arriesgado.

Why does paracaídas end in an -s if the English translation is singular ("a parachute")?

Paracaídas is a compound noun formed by combining the verb para (stops) and the plural noun caídas (falls). In Spanish, compound nouns made of a verb and a plural noun always end in -s and have the same form for singular and plural. You would say un paracaídas for one and dos paracaídas for two.

Why does this sentence use fue instead of era for "it was"? Aren't we describing a situation?

While descriptions in the past usually take the imperfect (era), the preterite (fue) is used here because it evaluates a single, completed action as a whole. You are giving a final summary or judgment on the specific jump that just happened (saltó), rather than setting an ongoing background scene.

Would arriesgado change to arriesgada if we knew a woman was the one who jumped?

No. The adjective arriesgado is not describing the person who jumped; it is describing the action of jumping itself. When an adjective describes an action, an abstract idea, or a neutral "it" (like the event of the jump), it always defaults to the masculine singular form.

Since this lesson is about intensity relative clauses, how could I rewrite "it was very risky" to mean "you don't know how risky it was"?