Talking about family and a pet | Learn Spanish in English

Sentence explanations

1. ¿Vives con tu familia?

   Do you live with family?

   Vives

   you live

   con

   with

   tu

   your

   familia

   family

   More detail

   Vives is the present-tense form of vivir (“to live”) for tú, the singular informal “you.” The form marks second-person singular: vivo = “I live,” vives = “you live,” and vive = “he/she/you formal lives.” con means “with” and is a preposition. It does not change form. tu is the unstressed possessive determiner meaning “your.” It agrees with the possessed noun in number, not with the possessor: tu familia = “your family,” while tus familiares = “your family members.” Do not confuse tu with tú, the pronoun “you”; the accent distinguishes them. familia is the singular noun “family.” Its plural is familias. Here, tu familia means the listener’s family. Together, ¿Vives con tu familia? asks whether the listener lives with their family: “Do you live with family?” Spanish can omit the subject pronoun tú because vives identifies the addressee; the question punctuation and intonation mark the utterance as a question.

2. Vivo con mi hijo.

   I live with my child.

   Vivo

   I live

   con

   with

   mi

   my

   hijo

   child

   More detail

   Vivo is the first-person singular present form of vivir, “to live.” The ending -o identifies the speaker as the subject here. The same verb can be reused with other subjects: vives = “you live,” as in the preceding question ¿Vives con tu familia?; vive = “he/she/you formal lives.” Con means “with” and introduces the person or thing accompanying the subject. Example: Vivo con mi familia. — “I live with my family.” Mi means “my.” It is a possessive adjective placed before the noun. It does not change for the gender of the noun: mi hijo = “my son/child,” and mi hija = “my daughter.” For more than one possessed item, Spanish uses mis: mis hijos = “my children.” Hijo is a masculine singular noun meaning “son” or, in this translation, “child.” Its feminine counterpart is hija (“daughter”). The plural is hijos; Spanish masculine plural can refer to a group of males or to a mixed-gender group when that reading is intended. Together, Vivo con mi hijo means “I live with my child.” The subject is the speaker, expressed by vivo; con mi hijo identifies the person living with the speaker. The sentence is a simple present-tense statement.

3. ¿También hay una mascota en casa?

   Is there a pet at home too?

   También

   also; too

   hay

   there is; there are

   mascota

   pet

   casa

   home; house

   More detail

   También means “also” or “too.” It adds this question to something already relevant; it does not replace or exclude that earlier information. For example: También quiero té. — “I also want tea.” Hay is the present-tense form used to say that something exists or is present: “there is” or “there are.” It is invariable, so it does not change for singular or plural nouns. Compare: Hay una mascota. — “There is a pet.” and Hay dos mascotas. — “There are two pets.” The noun shows the number, while hay stays the same. Mascota means “pet.” Its plural is mascotas. In this sentence, una mascota refers to an unspecified pet, without stating that there is a particular number beyond the singular form of the noun phrase. Example: Mi mascota es tranquila. — “My pet is calm.” Casa means “house” or “home.” In en casa, the preposition en combines with casa to express being at home; Spanish commonly uses this expression without a possessive when the intended meaning is simply “at home.” Example: Estoy en casa. — “I am at home.” The question pattern is ¿Hay ...?, literally asking whether something exists or is present. Here, una mascota is the thing whose presence is asked about, and en casa gives the location. También adds the meaning “too,” so the complete utterance asks whether there is a pet at home as well: “Is there a pet at home too?”

4. Tenemos un perro pequeño.

   We have a small dog.

   Tenemos

   we have

   perro

   dog

   pequeño

   small

   More detail

   Tenemos is the first-person plural present form of tener (“to have”): tenemos = “we have.” The subject nosotros (“we”) is built into the verb, so Spanish normally omits the subject pronoun when it is clear. Compare tengo (“I have”) and tienen (“they/you all have”). Example: Tenemos tiempo. — “We have time.” perro means “dog.” It is a masculine singular noun; its plural is perros. The article un marks an indefinite singular noun (“a dog” here), but it does not by itself assert a numerical count as a teaching point. Example: Tengo un perro. — “I have a dog.” pequeño means “small” here and describes perro. Because the noun is masculine singular, the adjective is masculine singular: perro pequeño. With a feminine singular noun, the form is pequeña, as in the example una casa pequeña — “a small house.” Its plural forms are pequeños and pequeñas, matching the noun’s gender and number. In this sentence, pequeño appears after the noun, a common position for an ordinary descriptive adjective. Together, Tenemos un perro pequeño means “We have a small dog.” The verb supplies the subject “we,” un perro identifies an indefinite dog, and pequeño adds the dog’s size. The sentence is a reusable pattern: Tenemos un/una [noun] [adjective] — “We have a [noun] [adjective].”

5. ¿Cómo se llevan?

   How do they get along?

   ¿Cómo

   How

   se llevan

   get along

   More detail

   ¿Cómo is the interrogative adverb “how.” The accent distinguishes it in a question from como without an accent, which has other uses. It asks about the manner or quality of something, not about a person or thing. Example: ¿Cómo trabajan? — “How do they work?” se llevan is the present-tense form of the pronominal expression llevarse, used here to ask how people or other beings get along. llevan is the third-person plural form of llevar; the plural subject is understood from the form and from “they” in the fixed translation. In this expression, se belongs with llevarse; it is not best translated separately. The same construction can be expanded as llevarse bien (“to get along well”) or llevarse mal (“to get along badly”). Example: Ellos se llevan bien. — “They get along well.” Together, ¿Cómo se llevan? asks about the quality of the relationship between the unspecified plural participants: “How do they get along?”

6. Juegan juntos todos los días.

   They play together every day.

   Juegan

   play

   juntos

   together

   todos los días

   every day

   More detail

   Juegan comes from jugar, “to play.” Here it is the present-tense form for third-person plural: “they play.” The same form can also mean “you all play” in contexts where ustedes is the understood subject, but the fixed translation establishes “they” here. Example: Ellos juegan al fútbol. — “They play soccer.” juntos means “together,” emphasizing that the participants do the activity with one another. It is the masculine plural form of junto; the feminine plural form is juntas, and singular forms are junto and junta. In this sentence, juntos agrees with the plural group referred to by “they”; the supplied text does not identify that group’s members more specifically. Example: Trabajamos juntos. — “We work together.” todos los días is a time expression meaning “every day.” Todos is the plural masculine form of todo, agreeing with días; los días means “the days.” The expression describes repeated frequency, not one particular day. Example: Leo todos los días. — “I read every day.” Together, Juegan + juntos says that the group plays together, and todos los días adds the repeated time pattern. The complete utterance therefore means: “They play together every day.”