Word
Mi hermana dice que su signo del zodiaco siempre es muy positivo.
Meaning
My sister says that her zodiac sign is always very positive.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Mi hermana dice que su signo del zodiaco siempre es muy positivo.
ser
to be
de
of
muy
very
la hermana
the sister
Questions & Answers about Mi hermana dice que su signo del zodiaco siempre es muy positivo.
Why doesn't the verb es change tense in the second half of the sentence?
Because the reporting verb is in the present tense (dice). When you transmit a statement using a present tense verb like dice que (says that), the tense of the original quote does not change.
What would the sister's original direct quote look like before being reported?
She originally said: Mi signo del zodiaco siempre es muy positivo. Notice that to turn this into reported speech, the only thing we had to change was the possessive adjective from mi (my) to su (her) to match the speaker's new perspective.
Why do we use es instead of está when talking about being positive here?
Why is it del zodiaco instead of just de zodiaco?
In Spanish, the word for zodiac requires the masculine definite article, making it el zodiaco. When the preposition de (of) is followed directly by el (the), they must combine to form the mandatory contraction del.