Breakdown of A nuestro abuelo no le gusta hablar por videollamada.
no
no / not
hablar
to speak
nuestro
our
el abuelo
the grandfather
Questions & Answers about A nuestro abuelo no le gusta hablar por videollamada.
Why do we use "por" here instead of "en" or "con"?
In Spanish, when you want to express the means or method of communication, you use the preposition por. Just like you say por teléfono (by phone) or por correo (by mail), you use por videollamada to express "via video call".
Why are both "A nuestro abuelo" and "le" used in the same sentence?
Verbs like gustar (to like) require an indirect object pronoun, which is le (to him) in this case. Even though we already specify who "him" is with A nuestro abuelo (To our grandfather), Spanish grammatically requires the pronoun le. The phrase A nuestro abuelo just adds clarity or emphasis.
Why is the verb "gusta" singular?
Why is there no "la" before "videollamada"?
When using por to indicate a general means of communication or transportation, Spanish typically drops the definite article (la or el). You just say por videollamada, which is similar to how we say "by phone" instead of "by the phone" in English.