Word
La mesa de madera es más cara que la de plástico.
Meaning
The wooden table is more expensive than the plastic one.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of La mesa de madera es más cara que la de plástico.
ser
to be
de
of
la mesa
the table
caro
expensive
Questions & Answers about La mesa de madera es más cara que la de plástico.
Why does the sentence say de madera instead of using a single adjective for "wooden"?
In Spanish, you generally don't use adjectives for materials like wood, metal, or plastic. Instead, you use the preposition de (of) followed by the noun for the material. Therefore, a "wooden table" is literally said as a "table of wood" (mesa de madera).
Where is the word for "one" in the phrase la de plástico ("the plastic one")?
Spanish doesn't use a direct translation for the pronoun "one" in this context. Instead, it drops the repeated noun (mesa) and just leaves the definite article (la) next to the new description. Because mesa is feminine, we use la, making la de plástico literally translate to "the of plastic."
Why is the word for expensive written as cara instead of caro?
Adjectives in Spanish must match the gender of the noun they describe, even when separated by other words like es más. Because cara is describing la mesa (a feminine noun), the adjective must also be in its feminine form.