Preposition with relative pronoun

Hola David L.

Your version (“el año en el que empecé…”) is also marked as correct in the system, along with the version without en.

Good catch and thanks for pointing it out.

Hasta pronto

Silvia

Hola David L.

Great questions — Spanish relative clauses really are tricky, so you’re definitely not alone.

In the sentence “También fue el año en que empecé un nuevo proyecto personal”, both en que and en el que are actually correct. With time expressions such as año, día, momento or época, Spanish very often drops the article after the preposition and simply uses en que. This is extremely common and sounds very natural in both spoken and written Spanish.

That’s why “el año en que empecé…” is perfectly fine. “El año en el que empecé…” is also correct, but it sounds a bit more explicit and slightly more formal. Your lessons aren’t wrong in saying that a preposition is often followed by an article before que, but time nouns are a well-known exception where en que is idiomatic and widely preferred.

As for “el año cuando empecé”, that one doesn’t work in Spanish. Although cuando refers to time, it can’t directly follow a noun like año. It needs to introduce a clause instead, as in “Fue en 2020 cuando empecé…”, but not “el año cuando…”.

You’re asking exactly the right kind of questions here, this is a subtle point and noticing it shows you’re developing a very strong feel for how Spanish really works.

Saludos

Silvia