Breakdown of Marinado el pescado con ajo, lo pusimos en la sartén.
en
in / on / at
con
with
el pescado
the fish
poner
to put
Questions & Answers about Marinado el pescado con ajo, lo pusimos en la sartén.
Why does this sentence start with the past participle Marinado instead of a phrase like Después de marinar?
This is an absolute participle clause, which is a stylish way to set up the temporal or causal background for the main action. It means the same thing as Después de marinar el pescado (After marinating the fish) or Como el pescado estaba marinado (Since the fish was marinated), but does it more concisely. You can usually translate it as 'Once [X] was done' or 'With [X] done'.
Why does the verb Marinado come before the noun el pescado?
In absolute participle clauses, the past participle almost always comes before the noun it affects. It is a fixed structural rule. If you said El pescado marinado..., it would just sound like a regular subject ('The marinated fish...') and the listener would expect a verb right after it, completely changing the flow of the sentence.
Does the ending of Marinado change depending on the food we are cooking?
Yes! Even though it is setting up a background action, the past participle in this structure acts like an adjective. It must agree in gender and number with its noun. Because el pescado is masculine and singular, we use Marinado. If you were talking about vegetables (las verduras), the sentence would start with Marinadas las verduras...
Why do we need the pronoun lo in lo pusimos when we already established we are talking about the fish?