Breakdown of Son las dos y los caballos frenéticos rompen a galopar.
ser
to be
y
and
las
the (feminine plural)
dos
two
el caballo
horse
frenético
frantic
romper a
to suddenly start
galopar
to gallop
Questions & Answers about Son las dos y los caballos frenéticos rompen a galopar.
Why use rompen a galopar instead of just empiezan a galopar?
The phrase romper a followed by an infinitive expresses the sudden beginning of an action. While empiezan a simply means they start to, rompen a emphasizes that the action started very abruptly and with intense energy. This perfectly captures the English phrase break into a gallop.
Since this lesson also covers echarse a, could I say los caballos se echan a galopar instead?
Yes, you absolutely could. Both romper a and echarse a express a sudden start to an action. The phrase echarse a is extremely common with verbs of motion like running or flying. However, romper a carries a slightly more explosive or disruptive nuance, which fits nicely with the fact that these horses are frenéticos.
Why doesn't the sentence say rompen a galopando since the action is ongoing once it starts?
In Spanish, prepositions like the a in romper a are almost always followed by an infinitive, never a gerund like galopando. Even though the galloping continues after it begins, the grammatical rule dictates using the infinitive galopar.
I always second-guess myself on telling time. Why is it son las dos and not es las dos?
When telling time in Spanish, the verb ser and the definite article must agree with the hour. Because dos is a plural number, you must use the plural verb son and the plural article las, which stands for the plural noun las horas. You only use the singular es la for one o'clock, as in es la una.
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