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El perro flaco come menos que el gato.

El perro flaco come menos que el gato.
The skinny dog eats less than the cat.
From Lesson 64:Comparatives of inequality (más / menos ... que)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of El perro flaco come menos que el gato.

comer
to eat
el perro
the dog
el gato
the cat
flaco
skinny (colloquial LatAm)

Questions & Answers about El perro flaco come menos que el gato.

Why are menos and que directly next to each other here?
When you compare using a describing word, it goes in the middle, like menos flaco que (less skinny than). But when you compare an action (like eating), menos que (less than) or más que (more than) stay glued together right after the verb.
Why is it perro flaco instead of flaco perro?
In Spanish, describing words (adjectives) almost always go exactly after the thing they describe. So, "the skinny dog" is built as "the dog skinny" (el perro flaco).
Could I leave out el and just say que gato?
No, Spanish needs the word el (the) here to say "than the cat". If you just said que gato, it would sound like "eats less than cat", which sounds just as incomplete as it does in English.
If the cat were female, would the sentence change?
Yes! You would change el gato to la gata. We use el gato when the cat is male, or when we are just talking about a cat in general and don't know its gender.

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