Learn Spanish (Spain): Visito a mi hermano en la ciudad.

Visito a mi hermano en la ciudad.

I visit my brother in the city.

Breakdown of Visito a mi hermano en la ciudad.

in / on / by (means of transport) / about (after pensar)

Questions & Answers about Visito a mi hermano en la ciudad.

Why is there an "a" after visito?

In Spanish, when the object of a verb is a specific person (or a beloved pet), you must put the word a right before them. Since you are visiting mi hermano (my brother), we say visito a mi hermano. This is called the "personal a" and we don't have an equivalent for it in English.

Why isn't the word for "I" (yo) at the beginning of the sentence?

The ending of the verb already tells us who is doing the action. The verb visitar (to visit) becomes visito for "I visit". You can say Yo visito a mi hermano, but Spanish speakers usually drop the yo because the -o ending makes it obvious.

Based on this lesson, how would I use dónde (where) to ask a friend where they visit their brother?

To ask "Where do you visit your brother?", you would say: ¿Dónde visitas a tu hermano? Notice that the verb changes to the "you" form (visitas), but we still keep the personal a right before tu hermano.

How do I know if ciudad (city) is masculine or feminine?

The word ciudad is feminine, which is why it uses la (the) instead of el. A great rule of thumb to remember is that Spanish words ending in -dad, like universidad or ciudad, are almost always feminine.