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El chico es todo un novato y había empezado a tartamudear.

El chico es todo un novato y había empezado a tartamudear.
The boy is a true rookie and had started to stutter.
From Lesson 418:Emphasizing nouns (todo un / toda una)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about El chico es todo un novato y había empezado a tartamudear.

How does todo un change the meaning of novato here?
Placing todo un before a singular noun is a common way to emphasize degree in Spanish. It translates to "a complete," "a true," or "quite the" in English. By saying todo un novato, the speaker highlights the sheer extent of the boy's lack of experience.
Why do we use es instead of está if being a rookie is a temporary phase?
While being a rookie is temporary, novato functions as an identifying noun here. In Spanish, the verb ser is always used to equate a person with a noun label, profession, or identity, regardless of whether that status will change in the future.
Why is there an a between empezado and tartamudear?
The verb empezar requires the preposition a whenever it is followed by an infinitive verb to express the start of an action. Since tartamudear means "to stutter," the correct structure must be empezar a plus the infinitive.
Why use the past perfect había empezado instead of the simple past empezó?
Había empezado translates to "had started." This tense is used because the stuttering began before the current moment of the past narrative. It sets the background context, whereas empezó would imply the stuttering was a sudden, new action happening right then.

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