Breakdown of Nuestras raquetas chocaron porque interferimos el uno con el otro.
nuestro
our
con
with
porque
because
uno
one
otro
other
chocar
to crash
la raqueta
the racket
interferir
to interfere
Questions & Answers about Nuestras raquetas chocaron porque interferimos el uno con el otro.
Why does the preposition con go in the middle of el uno and el otro instead of before the whole phrase?
In Spanish, when a reciprocal action involves a preposition (like "with", "of", or "for"), that preposition must split the reciprocal phrase. Instead of saying "with each other" literally (con el uno al otro), you put the preposition right before the second person: el uno con el otro.
Would this phrase change if the two players were women?
Why didn't we just use the reciprocal pronoun nos to mean "each other" here?
The verb interferir connects to its object with the preposition con (to interfere with). While Spanish often uses the reciprocal pronoun nos for "each other" (like nos vimos, "we saw each other"), you can't attach a preposition to nos in that way. To express mutual interference using con, you have to spell out the full phrase el uno con el otro.
Is interferimos in the present or past tense here?
It is in the preterite (simple past) tense. For -ir verbs like interferir, the nosotros form is exactly the same in both the present and the preterite (interferimos). You can tell it means "we interfered" (past) rather than "we interfere" (present) because the first verb in the sentence, chocaron (crashed), establishes that this event happened in the past.
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