Este translated as he??

Question

I came across this sentence "..un viejo professor. éste vivía en medio del campo...."

Translated I came up with " an old professor. He lived in the middle of the countryside..." I don't understand how éste can mean he. This is what I understand so far. éste is a demonstrative pronoun that can replace a noun which is located nearby. Technically, professor is a noun so in that case éste is appropriate. But why not use él?

Sorry for not using proper capitalization. I couldn't figure out how to use a tilde with a capital letter.

Answer 1

In English we seldom use demonstrative pronouns with people except in conjunction with another word. We would say "this man speaks English", but we generally would not say "this speaks English." In Spanish, we can leave out the repeated subject: "Éste habla español." Usually, we would say something like this only when the subject has already been mentioned.

Hay un grupo de hombres aca, pero éste habla inglés. There is a group of men here, but this one speaks English. (pointing at him)

In your example, "Él" would also be perfectly correct.

Thank you. I am still trying to learn demonstrative pronouns. - alice_m, Feb 10, 2010

The reference article didn't explain it as well as you did, at least for this one specific example. - alice_m, Feb 10, 2010