Word
Nadie entiende el porqué de su decisión.
Meaning
Nobody understands the reason for his decision.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Nadie entiende el porqué de su decisión.
de
of
su
his / her / their / your (formal)
entender
to understand
nadie
no one
Questions & Answers about Nadie entiende el porqué de su decisión.
Why is "porqué" written as a single word with an accent mark in this sentence?
Here, porqué is acting as a masculine noun meaning "the reason" or "the cause," which is why it comes right after the article el. As a noun, it is always written as one word with a tilde on the final "e". This is different from the question word por qué (two words, meaning "why") and the conjunction porque (one word, no accent, meaning "because").
The English translation says "the reason FOR his decision." Why does the Spanish use "de" instead of "por" or "para"?
Because el porqué is a noun, it connects to the following noun phrase (su decisión) using the preposition de. Just like in English you would say "the cause OF his decision," Spanish uses de to link the two nouns together. Using por or para here would be grammatically incorrect.
Is there a difference between using "el porqué" and "la razón" here?
I know "nadie" means nobody, but do I ever need to use "no" in a sentence like this?