Question 1

Why is noviembre written with a lowercase letter, but Octubre is capitalized?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, the months of the year are always written with lowercase letters. Octubre is only capitalized here because it is the first word of the sentence.

Question 2

How do you make the word for "month" (mes) plural?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, if a word ends in a vowel, you usually just add -s to make it plural. But if it ends in a consonant (like the s in mes), you add -es. That gives us meses.

Question 3

Why does the word tristes come after meses?

Accepted Answer

In English, we put the descriptive word before the noun ("sad months"). In Spanish, descriptive adjectives usually come after the noun they are describing. So, it translates literally as "months sad".

Question 4

Why is it tristes instead of triste?

Accepted Answer

Adjectives in Spanish have to match the noun they describe in number (singular or plural). Because meses is plural, the adjective triste must also be plural. Since triste ends in an -e, we just add an -s to get tristes. (Because it ends in an -e, it uses the exact same form for both masculine and feminine nouns).

Question 5

Why do we use son instead of están for "are"?

Accepted Answer

We use son (from the verb ser) to talk about defining characteristics or permanent qualities. Even though sadness is usually a temporary emotion for people, the speaker is describing the general nature of October and November as gloomy months, so it is treated as a built-in characteristic.

Octubre y noviembre son meses tristes.

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