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El dolor de espalda es terrible.

El dolor de espalda es terrible.
Back pain is terrible.
From Lesson 137:Verbs like gustar (encantar, doler, importar)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about El dolor de espalda es terrible.

The lesson is about the verb doler. Is dolor a conjugation of it?
No, dolor is a noun meaning pain or ache. The verb taught in this lesson is doler (to hurt or to ache). While you might use the verb to say Me duele la espalda (My back hurts), this sentence uses the noun form to talk about the general concept of back pain.
Why do we say dolor de espalda instead of just putting the words for back and pain together?
In English, we can put two nouns together and use the first one like an adjective (back + pain). Spanish does not do this. Instead, you connect the two nouns with de (of). So, back pain translates to dolor de espalda (literally: pain of back).
Why is there an El at the beginning of the sentence when the English translation just says 'Back pain'?
In Spanish, when you talk about a general concept or thing as the subject of a sentence, you must use the definite article (el, la, los, or las). Because we are making a statement about back pain in general, we need El before dolor.
Why use es instead of está for terrible? Isn't pain a temporary condition?
Here, you are stating a general fact about what back pain is like as a concept, not describing how you are feeling right this second. Because being terrible is presented as an inherent characteristic of back pain, we use the verb ser (es).

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