Word
Ella vive en España.
Meaning
She lives in Spain.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ella vive en España.
ella
she / her (after a preposition)
en
in / on / by (means of transport) / about (after pensar)
vivir
to live
España
Spain
Questions & Answers about Ella vive en España.
Why do we use en here instead of de, which we are learning in this lesson?
We use en because it means "in" and tells us her current location (where she lives right now). The preposition de indicates origin or possession. If you wanted to talk about where she is originally from, you would use de and say Ella es de España (She is from Spain).
Do I always need to include the word Ella?
No! In Spanish, you can often drop the subject pronoun because the verb itself tells us who is doing the action. You could perfectly well just say Vive en España. However, because vive can translate to "he lives", "she lives", or "you (formal) live", adding Ella at the beginning makes it instantly clear exactly who we are talking about.
Why does the dictionary verb vivir (to live) change to vive in this sentence?
Vive is the specific form of the verb used for "he", "she", or "it". Because vivir is a regular verb ending in -ir, we drop that -ir ending and add an -e for these subjects. If you were talking about yourself, the ending would change to an "o" and you would say vivo (I live).