Log inSign up

El perro está fuera de la casa.

El perro está fuera de la casa.
The dog is outside the house.
From Lesson 90:Complex prepositions of place (encima de, debajo de...)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about El perro está fuera de la casa.

Why is there a de after fuera? Can I just say "fuera la casa"?
No, you need the de. In Spanish, many positional words like fuera (outside), dentro (inside), or al lado (next to) need de when they are followed by the specific place. It's helpful to think of it as literally saying "outside of the house."
I sometimes hear the word afuera. Could I say "afuera de la casa" instead?
Yes! While fuera de is the traditional preposition, in Latin American Spanish it is very common to hear afuera de used in the exact same way. Both mean "outside of the house" and will be perfectly understood.
Why do we use está here instead of es?
We use está (from the verb estar) because the sentence is talking about physical location. Spanish always uses estar to state where someone or something is located, regardless of whether that location is temporary or permanent.
What happens to de la if the dog is outside a masculine place, like "the building" (el edificio)?
You would say fuera del edificio. Whenever the preposition de is followed directly by the masculine article el (the), they mash together into the contraction del. Because casa uses the feminine la, we leave de la as two separate words here.

Learn El perro está fuera de la casa and more in Spanish

All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.

  • ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
  • ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
  • ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free
Start learning Spanish →