Breakdown of Los campesinos muelen el maíz para hacer tortillas.
los
the (masculine plural)
hacer
to do / to make
para
for
el campesino
the farmer
moler
to grind
el maíz
the corn
la tortilla
the tortilla
Questions & Answers about Los campesinos muelen el maíz para hacer tortillas.
Since this lesson is about past participles, what is the past participle of moler?
The infinitive is moler (to grind). Because it is an -er verb, you drop the -er and add -ido to get molido. Notice that the o-to-ue stem change we see in muelen doesn't happen with the past participle. If you wanted to say "the ground corn" using it as an adjective, you would say el maíz molido.
Why is the verb muelen spelled with a "ue" instead of an "o"?
It comes from the verb moler (to grind), which is a stem-changing verb. In the present tense, the o in the stem changes to ue for most forms (I, you, he/she/it, they). Since we are talking about "the farmers" (they), we use the stem-changed form muelen.
Could I use por instead of para to say "to make"?
Why does maíz have an accent mark on the "i"?
The accent mark forces the word to be pronounced as two distinct syllables (mah-EES). Without the accent mark, the "a" and "i" would blend together into a single syllable, changing the pronunciation completely.
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