Breakdown of El mago nos dio una sorpresa.
un
a, an, some
nos
to us / ourselves / us (direct object)
la sorpresa
the surprise
dar
to give
el mago
the magician
Questions & Answers about El mago nos dio una sorpresa.
Wait, dar is an -ar verb. Why does dio look like an -er or -ir verb?
That is exactly what makes dar irregular in the Pretérito Indefinido (past tense)! Even though it ends in -ar, it borrows the endings normally used for -er and -ir verbs. This is why "he gave" is dio instead of taking an -ar ending.
Why doesn't dio have an accent mark on the "o" like other past tense verbs?
Even though it is in the past tense, dio is a single syllable. In Spanish, one-syllable words do not get written accent marks unless they need to be distinguished from another word with the exact same spelling (like el and él).
Why does nos come before the verb here?
nos means "to us" and acts as an indirect object pronoun. In Spanish, you must place these pronouns immediately before the conjugated verb. So, while in English we say "gave us", the Spanish phrasing is literally "to us (he) gave" (nos dio).
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