Learn Spanish (Latin America): El tatuador tarda una hora en delinear el hombro. - The tattoo artist takes an hour to outline the shoulder.

The current lesson is about the progressive passive (estar siendo). How would we change this active sentence to say 'The shoulder is being outlined by the tattoo artist'?

You would use the passive voice construction: El hombro está siendo delineado por el tatuador. Notice that delineado (outlined) must agree in gender and number with the new subject, el hombro (masculine singular), and the original subject (el tatuador) becomes the agent introduced by por.

Why do we need the preposition en right before delinear?

In Spanish, to express that someone takes a certain amount of time to do a task, you use the set formula tardar + [amount of time] + en + [infinitive]. While English uses 'to' (takes an hour to outline), Spanish strictly requires the preposition en for this specific verb expression.

Why does the sentence use el hombro (the shoulder) instead of a possessive like su hombro (his/her shoulder)?

In Spanish, definite articles (el, la, los, las) are almost always used instead of possessive adjectives (mi, tu, su, etc.) for body parts and clothing when the 'owner' is obvious from context. This is a rule from earlier levels that is easy to forget since English always uses possessives for body parts.

Could we just say dibujar instead of delinear here?