¿Te duele el estómago? Casi nunca.

Questions & Answers about ¿Te duele el estómago? Casi nunca.

Why is casi nunca just standing alone here without a verb?
In conversation, adverbs of frequency like casi nunca (almost never) can be used as short answers all on their own. If you wanted to answer with a full sentence, you would say Casi nunca me duele (It almost never hurts me). Notice that when casi nunca comes before the verb, you don't need to add a double negative!
Why do we use te duele here instead of just asking duele?
The verb doler (to hurt or ache) works exactly like gustar. The Spanish sentence literally translates to "Does the stomach cause pain to you?". The pronoun te is the "to you" part, showing who is feeling the pain.
Why does it say el estómago (the stomach) instead of tu estómago (your stomach)?
In Spanish, when talking about body parts, you almost always use the definite article (el, la, los, las) instead of a possessive word like tu or mi. Because we already used the pronoun te (to you) earlier in the sentence, it is perfectly clear whose stomach we are talking about!
The verb is doler, so why is it spelled duele here?
Doler is a stem-changing verb. In the present tense, its middle o changes to ue. Since el estómago is a singular thing (like "he", "she", or "it"), we use the third-person singular form, which gives us duele.

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