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La tierra del jardín está sucia.

La tierra del jardín está sucia.
The soil in the garden is dirty.
From Lesson 26:Land and sea (el mar, el río, el norte)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about La tierra del jardín está sucia.

Why does the sentence use del instead of en el for 'in the'?
English speakers say 'the soil in the garden', but Spanish commonly uses de (of) to link nouns together to show belonging. Del is a mandatory contraction of de and el (the), so la tierra del jardín literally translates to 'the soil of the garden'.
Why do we use está instead of es for 'is'?
We use está (from the verb estar) because being dirty is a physical state or condition. A common rule for A1 learners is to use estar for temporary states (like being dirty or clean) and ser (which es comes from) for permanent characteristics.
Why does the word for dirty (sucia) end in an 'a'?
In Spanish, adjectives must match the gender of the noun they are describing. Since sucia describes la tierra, which is a feminine noun, it takes the feminine ending '-a' instead of the masculine sucio.
Can tierra mean things other than 'soil'?
Yes! Depending on the context, tierra can mean 'dirt', 'land', 'ground', or even the planet 'Earth'. Here, because it is located in a garden (jardín), 'soil' or 'dirt' is the most logical translation.

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