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Questions & Answers about La escalera está sucia.
Why is it La escalera (singular) when the English translation says "The stairs" (plural)?
In Spanish, la escalera often refers to the entire staircase or flight of stairs as a single unit. While you can also say las escaleras, using the singular form is very common and perfectly natural for referring to a set of stairs.
Why does this sentence use está instead of es?
Why does the word for dirty end in an "a" (sucia)?
Adjectives in Spanish must match the gender of the noun they describe. Because escalera is a feminine word (which we know because it uses la), the base adjective sucio changes its ending to match, becoming sucia.
Does escalera only mean stairs?
It usually means stairs or a staircase, but escalera is also the word used for a ladder or a stepladder! You can usually tell which one the speaker means based on where they are and what they are doing.