Learn Spanish (Spain): El capitán nunca ha visitado el campamento. Está preparado. - The captain has never visited the camp. It is prepared.

We use estar with a past participle (like preparado) to describe the state or condition that results from an action. The camp was prepared by someone, and now it is in a prepared state. We use ser to talk about permanent characteristics or to describe the passive action itself happening.

Since there is no subject in the second sentence, how do we know Está preparado means 'It is prepared' instead of 'He is prepared'?

In Spanish, pronoun subjects like él (he/it) are usually dropped. Both el capitán and el campamento are masculine singular nouns, so grammatically preparado could refer to either one. However, context tells us it refers to the camp being ready. Because el campamento is masculine, the participle acts as an adjective and takes the masculine ending -o.

Why is nunca placed before the verb ha visitado without the word no?

When a negative word like nunca (never) goes directly before the verb in Spanish, you do not use no. If you wanted to put nunca after the verb instead, you would need a double negative: El capitán no ha visitado el campamento nunca.

Both visitado and preparado are past participles. Why do they act differently here?