Learn Spanish (Spain): Tengo que limpiar los ojos del perro porque están sucios. - I have to clean the dog's eyes because they are dirty.

Tengo que limpiar los ojos del perro porque están sucios.

I have to clean the dog's eyes because they are dirty.

Breakdown of Tengo que limpiar los ojos del perro porque están sucios.

el perro

the dog

estar

to be (location/state)

Questions & Answers about Tengo que limpiar los ojos del perro porque están sucios.

Why is there a que after Tengo?

In Spanish, to say you "have to" do something, you use the phrase tener que followed by an action (the infinitive verb). Here, Tengo que limpiar means "I have to clean". Without que, it would just mean "I have clean", which doesn't make sense!

Why does it say los ojos del perro instead of something like "el perro's ojos"?

Spanish doesn't use an apostrophe-'s' for possession. Instead of saying "the dog's eyes", you have to say "the eyes of the dog". Also, del is a mandatory combination of de (of) and el (the). Whenever those two words meet, they always merge into del.

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

Spanish has two verbs for "to be". You use estar (which gives us están here) for temporary states and conditions. Because being dirty is a temporary condition that will change once you clean them, you must use están.

Why does sucios end in -os?

In Spanish, describing words (adjectives) must match the noun they describe in both gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural). Since sucios describes los ojos, which is a masculine, plural noun, the adjective takes the masculine plural ending -os.