Breakdown of Cuando era niño, nadaba a menudo en una piscina que estaba lejos de casa.
ser
to be
yo
I
en
in
estar
to be
que
that
cuando
when
la casa
the house
de
from
nadar
to swim
una
a, an
el niño
the child
a menudo
often
la piscina
the pool
lejos
far
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Spanish grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Cuando era niño, nadaba a menudo en una piscina que estaba lejos de casa.
Why is era used in Cuando era niño instead of a preterite form like fui?
Because era is the imperfect tense, which we use to describe an ongoing past condition or background information. Saying Cuando fui niño would sound like a single completed event, whereas Cuando era niño conveys “when I was a child” as a period of time.
Why is nadaba in the imperfect tense rather than the preterite nadé?
The imperfect (nadaba) expresses a habitual or repeated action in the past (“I used to swim”). The preterite (nadé) would imply a one‐time, completed swim. Since the sentence says you swam often, the imperfect is the correct choice.
What does a menudo mean, and could I use frecuentemente or muchas veces instead?
A menudo means “often.” You could indeed use con frecuencia (more formal) or muchas veces (“many times”) to express the same idea. They’re all common ways to talk about frequent past actions.
Why is there no yo before nadaba or era?
In Spanish, subject pronouns (like yo, tú, él) are often omitted because the verb endings already tell us who is doing the action. Adding yo would be grammatically correct for emphasis, but it’s not required.
What role does que play in una piscina que estaba lejos de casa?
Here que is a relative pronoun linking piscina to its description. It means “that” or “which,” so the phrase literally means “a pool that was far from home.”
Why is estaba also in the imperfect tense in the relative clause?
Because you’re describing the ongoing location or state of the pool in the past. It wasn’t a one‐time event that the pool was far; it was a continuous condition during that period, so we use the imperfect again.
Why say lejos de casa instead of lejos de mi casa?
When talking about “home,” Spanish speakers often drop the possessive because de casa already implies “my home.” If you really need to specify someone else’s home, you could say lejos de su casa or lejos de la casa de María, but for your own home lejos de casa is perfectly natural.