Breakdown of Los periodistas acaban de llegar al centro.
llegar
to arrive
a
to
el centro
the center
acabar
to finish (or to have just + infinitive)
Questions & Answers about Los periodistas acaban de llegar al centro.
How does "acaban de llegar" translate to "have just arrived" when "acaban" is in the present tense?
The structure acabar de followed by an infinitive (an unconjugated verb like llegar) is a special formula for the recent past. Even though acaban is conjugated in the present tense, the whole phrase translates to "have just done something" in English.
Why does "periodistas" use the masculine article "los" when the word ends in "-as"?
Why do we say "llegar al" instead of "llegar en el" to mean arriving somewhere?
In English, we usually say we "arrive in" or "arrive at" a place. But in Spanish, llegar (to arrive) is treated as a verb of motion toward a destination, so it almost always pairs with the preposition a (to).
What exactly is "al" a combination of?
The word al is a mandatory contraction of the preposition a (to) and the masculine singular article el (the). Whenever a and el appear next to each other in a sentence, they must merge into al.