Breakdown of Mi abuela vive en una residencia desde el año pasado.
un
a, an, some
en
in / on / by (means of transport) / about (after pensar)
vivir
to live
el año
the year
mi
my
la abuela
the grandmother
pasado
past
desde
since, from
la residencia
the nursing home, the care home
Questions & Answers about Mi abuela vive en una residencia desde el año pasado.
Why is vive in the present tense when the English translation says has lived?
In Spanish, when an action started in the past and is still happening right now, you use the present tense along with a time marker like desde (since). English uses the present perfect, but if you said ha vivido here, it would sound like the action is finished or you are focusing only on the past experience rather than her ongoing living situation.
Why does una residencia translate to a nursing home instead of a residence?
Could I use desde hace instead of desde in this sentence?
Not with el año pasado. You use desde for a specific starting point in time, such as a date or a specific year. You use desde hace when talking about an amount of time or duration, like saying desde hace un año (for a year). Since el año pasado is a fixed point in time, desde is the correct choice here.
Why isn't there an extra preposition like en before el año pasado?
Time expressions like el año pasado (last year) or el mes pasado (last month) connect directly to the preposition desde. Adding another preposition, like saying desde en el año pasado, is grammatically incorrect in Spanish.
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