El maestro de kárate respira lenta y silenciosamente.
The karate master breathes slowly and silently.
Breakdown of El maestro de kárate respira lenta y silenciosamente.
y
and
de
of
lento
slow
respirar
to breathe
el maestro
the primary school teacher / the master (expert instructor of an art or martial art)
el kárate
the karate
silencioso
silent
Questions & Answers about El maestro de kárate respira lenta y silenciosamente.
Why is it lenta y silenciosamente instead of lentamente y silenciosamente?
When you have two or more adverbs ending in -mente connected by a conjunction like y (and) or o (or), you drop the -mente suffix from all of them except the very last one. This prevents the sentence from sounding repetitive and clunky.
Since el maestro is masculine, why does the first adverb take the feminine form lenta instead of lento?
Adverbs ending in -mente are always formed using the feminine singular form of the adjective. Even though the -mente suffix is dropped from lenta in this list, it must still keep that underlying feminine singular base form. Adverbs modify verbs, not nouns, so they do not change to match the gender of the subject.
Why does kárate have a written accent mark?
In Spain, this loanword is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, making it an esdrújula word that requires a written accent: kárate. Note that in most of Latin America, it is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable and written without an accent: karate.
Why do we use de in maestro de kárate?
In English, you can place a noun right before another noun to describe it, like "karate master". In Spanish, you generally cannot stack nouns this way. You must connect them with the preposition de, literally translating to "master of karate".
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