Questions & Answers about Es que depende del clima.
Why use Es que instead of just starting the sentence with Porque (because)?
Es que is a very natural discourse marker used to introduce a justification or an excuse, translating roughly to "It's just that..." or "The thing is...". While you could use porque, starting a sentence with Es que softens your response, making it sound more conversational and often a bit apologetic.
Why do we use del here instead of en el? In English we say it depends "on" the weather.
In Spanish, the verb depender always pairs with the preposition de, never en. When de is followed by the masculine article el, they must combine to form the contraction del.
Why is it del clima if clima ends in an "a"? Shouldn't it be feminine?
Clima is actually a masculine noun, which is why it takes the article el. It belongs to a specific group of words of Greek origin that end in "-ma" but are masculine, just like el problema, el idioma, and el sistema.
Where is the word for "it" in the Spanish sentence?
Spanish doesn't have a direct equivalent for the subject pronoun "it". When you want to say "it depends" or "it's raining", you simply use the third-person singular form of the verb all by itself. Here, depende carries the full meaning of "it depends".
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