Breakdown of Aparqué el coche y llegué tarde al ayuntamiento.
y
and
el coche
the car
llegar
to arrive
al
to the (m)
tarde
late
el ayuntamiento
the city hall
aparcar
to park
Questions & Answers about Aparqué el coche y llegué tarde al ayuntamiento.
Why is it spelled aparqué and not aparcé?
Why does llegué have a u in it?
Llegué is the past tense "I" form of llegar (to arrive). Just like the previous word, we need a spelling change to keep the verb's original pronunciation. If we wrote llegé, the g before an e would make a harsh sound (like an English "h"). Adding the silent u to make it -gué keeps the hard "g" sound from llegar.
Why do we say al ayuntamiento instead of a el ayuntamiento?
Whenever the preposition a (to) is followed immediately by the masculine article el (the), they must combine into the single word al. Since ayuntamiento is a masculine noun, we use al to mean "to the".
Why does the Spanish sentence use llegué tarde instead of a past tense form of ser or estar?
In English, we often say "I was late" using the verb "to be". In Spanish, it is much more natural to use the verb llegar (to arrive) to express this idea for destinations and events. Llegué tarde literally translates as "I arrived late", which is exactly how a Spanish speaker would say "I was late".
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