Learn Spanish (Latin America): A pesar de su vida humilde, el monje tuvo éxito. - In spite of his humble life, the monk was successful.

A pesar de su vida humilde, el monje tuvo éxito.

In spite of his humble life, the monk was successful.

Breakdown of A pesar de su vida humilde, el monje tuvo éxito.

his/her/its/their/your (formal)

Questions & Answers about A pesar de su vida humilde, el monje tuvo éxito.

Since the current lesson is about verbs of change, could we use llegar a ser in this sentence?

Yes! Instead of tuvo éxito (he had success), you could say llegó a ser exitoso (he became successful). Using llegar a ser would emphasize that his success was the culmination of a long process or hard effort, which fits perfectly with the contrast of his humble background. The original sentence just states his success as a completed fact.

Why does the Spanish sentence use tuvo (had) instead of a word for "was"?

In English, we say someone "was successful" (using the verb "to be"). Spanish typically expresses this by saying someone "has success" using the phrase tener éxito. Here, tuvo is the past tense (preterite) of tener, so it literally translates to "he had success."

How exactly does the phrase a pesar de work?

A pesar de is a very common fixed phrase meaning "in spite of" or "despite." It is always followed by a noun (like su vida humilde in this sentence), a pronoun, or an infinitive verb. If you want to follow it with a conjugated verb instead, you have to add que, making it a pesar de que (even though).

Why is the adjective humilde placed after vida instead of before it?