Learn Spanish (Spain): ¡Qué desastre! La cocina está muy sucia. - What a disaster! The kitchen is very dirty.

¡Qué desastre! La cocina está muy sucia.

What a disaster! The kitchen is very dirty.

Breakdown of ¡Qué desastre! La cocina está muy sucia.

to be (location/state)

sucio

dirty

Questions & Answers about ¡Qué desastre! La cocina está muy sucia.

Why is there no word for 'a' in '¡Qué desastre!'?

In English, we say 'What a...' before a singular noun. But in Spanish, the exclamation ¡qué! goes directly before the noun. You never use un or una right after ¡qué! in these types of exclamatory sentences.

Why does 'Qué' have an accent mark?

Words like qué, cómo, and dónde always take an accent mark when they are used in exclamations or questions. This helps distinguish them from their normal forms, like when que just means 'that'.

Why do we use 'está' instead of 'es' here?

We use está (from the verb estar) because being dirty is a temporary physical state. Once you clean the kitchen, it will no longer be dirty. If we used es (from ser), it would imply the kitchen is inherently a permanently dirty place.

Why does 'sucia' end in an '-a'?

Sucia is an adjective meaning 'dirty', and it describes la cocina (the kitchen). Because cocina is a feminine noun, the adjective must match it by taking the feminine form sucia instead of the masculine sucio.