Breakdown of Nos prohíbe que toquemos la trompeta en la sinfonía.
en
in / on / at
tocar
to play (an instrument)
que
that / than
nos
to us
prohibir
to prohibit
la trompeta
the trumpet
la sinfonía
the symphony
Questions & Answers about Nos prohíbe que toquemos la trompeta en la sinfonía.
Could we also use the infinitive here and say Nos prohíbe tocar...?
Yes! With verbs of influence like prohibir, when the person being influenced is stated as an indirect object (nos), you can use either que plus the subjunctive (que toquemos) or drop the que and use the infinitive (tocar). Both Nos prohíbe que toquemos and Nos prohíbe tocar are completely natural and mean the same thing.
If toquemos already means "we play," why do we also need nos at the beginning?
The nos is an indirect object pronoun acting as the receiver of the main verb, prohíbe. It translates to "He forbids us". Even though the que toquemos part also implies "we," Spanish requires the indirect object pronoun with prohibir to clearly show who is receiving the prohibition in the main clause.
Why is toquemos spelled with a qu instead of a c?
The verb is tocar. In the present subjunctive, the ending for the "we" form is -emos. If we just added that to the root, we would get tocemos, which is pronounced with a soft "s" sound. To keep the hard "k" sound of the original verb, the spelling of the c changes to qu, giving us toquemos.
Why does the i in prohíbe have an accent mark?
Without an accent, the o and i (ignoring the silent h) would blend into a single syllable, and the natural word stress would shift. The written accent mark creates a hiatus, separating the vowels into two distinct syllables and placing the stress firmly on the i.
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