Breakdown of No puedo hacer dos cosas al mismo tiempo.
no
no, not
hacer
to do / to make
poder
to be able to / can
dos
two
la cosa
the thing
al mismo tiempo
at the same time
Questions & Answers about No puedo hacer dos cosas al mismo tiempo.
This lesson is about using al with an infinitive verb, but there is no infinitive after al here. What is happening?
You are right to notice that! While this lesson teaches al + infinitive to mean "upon doing" something (like al llegar for "upon arriving"), this sentence uses al in its basic form. Here, al is just the preposition a combined with the article el. The phrase al mismo tiempo is a fixed expression that simply means "at the same time."
Why does mismo come before tiempo? Don't Spanish adjectives usually go after the noun?
Most descriptive adjectives do go after the noun, but adjectives that limit or clarify identity usually come before it. Mismo (same) belongs to this group. If you placed it after the noun, like in el tiempo mismo, the meaning would actually change from "the same time" to "time itself."
Why do we say al mismo tiempo using the preposition a instead of en?
In Spanish, specific expressions of time often use a where English uses "at", such as a las tres (at three o'clock) or al mismo tiempo (at the same time). If you used en el mismo tiempo, it would sound unnatural, because en el tiempo feels more like "in time" as a broad concept rather than two things happening simultaneously.
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