Breakdown of Ayer llegamos a la pensión muy tarde.
muy
very
llegar
to arrive
a
to
tarde
late
ayer
yesterday
la pensión
the guesthouse; board (full board, half board)
Questions & Answers about Ayer llegamos a la pensión muy tarde.
Why does llegamos mean "we arrived" when it is the present tense form for "we arrive"?
For regular -ar and -ir verbs, the nosotros (we) form is exactly the same in both the present tense and the simple past (preterite) tense. We know it means "arrived" here because the sentence starts with the past time marker ayer (yesterday).
Why is it llegamos a instead of llegamos en? I thought we arrived "at" the guesthouse.
In English, we arrive "at" or "in" a place. In Spanish, the verb llegar is almost always followed by the preposition a (to), because Spanish treats arriving as a movement toward a destination.
Is pensión a false friend? I thought it meant retirement money.
It means both! While it does mean a retirement pension, in Spain it is also a very common word for a budget guesthouse, small hostel, or boarding house.
Do I have to put ayer at the very beginning of the sentence?
No, Spanish word order is flexible. You could say Llegamos a la pensión muy tarde ayer and it is perfectly correct. Putting ayer first is just a natural way to set the scene before describing what happened.
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