Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): De niña era muy tímida y casi no hablaba en clase. - As a little girl I was very shy and almost did not speak in class.

De niña is a bit shorter and often sounds more conversational and fluid.
Cuando era niña is slightly more explicit and literal, focusing on the time clause "when I was a girl".

In everyday speech in Spain, "De niña" / "De pequeño/a" is extremely common.

If the speaker were male, how would this sentence change?

You would change the feminine forms to masculine:

De niña → De niño
tímida → tímido

So the sentence would be:

De niño era muy tímido y casi no hablaba en clase.

Everything else (era, casi no hablaba, en clase) stays the same.

Why is the verb "era" used instead of "fui"?

Both "era" and "fui" are forms of ser, but they express different aspects of past time:

era → imperfect tense (ongoing, repeated, or background state in the past)
fui → preterite tense (completed, one-time event in the past)

Being shy as a child is a long-lasting characteristic, not a single event. So Spanish uses the imperfect:

De niña era muy tímida… = As a girl, I used to be / was (in general) very shy.

"Fui muy tímida" would sound like a specific, limited period or situation, not your general personality in childhood.

Why is it "era muy tímida" and not "estaba muy tímida"?

In Spanish, ser and estar both translate to "to be" in English but are used differently:

ser tímida: describes a long-term characteristic or personality trait.
estar tímida: describes a temporary state or mood (e.g., today, at this party).

In the sentence:

De niña era muy tímida… → This describes what she was like as a person during her childhood.

If you say:

De niña estaba muy tímida

it sounds more like she was temporarily shy in some specific situation (for example, that day), which is not what the original sentence is saying.

Why is there no "yo" in the sentence? How do we know it means "I"?

Spanish often omits subject pronouns because the verb ending already tells you who the subject is:

era can only be I (yo) or he/she/it (él/ella) or you formal (usted) in context.
But "De niña" is clearly something you say about yourself, and in conversation the context usually makes it clear that "yo" is meant.

So:

(Yo) de niña era muy tímida… → The yo is optional and normally dropped.

Spanish only uses the explicit pronoun yo for emphasis or contrast:

Yo, de niña, era muy tímida, pero mi hermana no.

What exactly does "casi" mean in "casi no hablaba", and where can it go in the sentence?

In this sentence, "casi" means "almost" / "hardly" in the sense of "almost not":

casi no hablaba ≈ she hardly spoke / she almost didn’t speak.

The neutral and most natural position in this sentence is:

casi no hablaba en clase

You generally put "casi" immediately before "no" (or before the word it modifies):

casi nunca hablaba – she almost never spoke
casi siempre hablaba – she almost always spoke

In this specific sentence, "casi no hablaba en clase" is the standard word order.
"No casi hablaba" is not correct.

Is there a difference between "casi no hablaba" and "no hablaba casi nada"?

Both express the idea that she spoke very little, but the nuance is slightly different:

casi no hablaba
- Literally: she almost didn’t speak.
- Focus on the action itself being almost nonexistent.
no hablaba casi nada
- Literally: she didn’t speak almost anything → she barely said anything.
- Emphasizes the amount she spoke (almost nothing).

In everyday use, they’re very close. Both are natural and would typically be understood as "she hardly said a word in class."

What does "en clase" mean, and why isn’t it "en la clase"?

"En clase" in Spain usually means "in class" (during lessons / while you are in the classroom as a student).

There is a subtle difference:

en clase → in class, during class time (general)
- No hablaba en clase. = She didn’t speak (while) in class.
en la clase → more specific: in the class (that specific class or subject), or literally inside the room.
- No hablaba en la clase de matemáticas. = She didn’t speak in the maths class.

In Peninsular Spanish, "en clase" without article is very common when talking about behaviour during lessons in general.

Why is "tímida" in the feminine form? Could it be "tímido"?

Adjectives in Spanish must agree in gender and number with the person or thing they describe.

niña is feminine, so the adjective must be feminine: tímida.
If it were niño (boy), the adjective would be tímido.

Examples:

De niña era muy tímida. (female speaker)
De niño era muy tímido. (male speaker)

So "tímido" would be wrong here because the subject is understood to be feminine.

Could you say "De pequeña" instead of "De niña"? Is there a difference?

Yes, in Spain "De pequeña" is very natural and very common, and it would mean almost the same:

De niña era muy tímida…
De pequeña era muy tímida…

Both mean "When I was little, I was very shy…"

Nuance:

niña focuses a bit more on being a girl / child.
pequeña focuses more on the fact of being little / young (age/size), not the gender role as a girl.

For a male speaker: De pequeño era muy tímido…

Why is "hablaba" in the imperfect tense and not "hablé"?

"Hablaba" is the imperfect (ongoing or repeated action in the past).
"Hablé" is the preterite (completed action at a specific time).

The sentence describes a habitual behaviour in the past:

casi no hablaba en clase → she used to hardly speak in class / she generally didn’t speak.

If you said:

casi no hablé en clase

it would refer to one specific class or day:
"I almost didn’t speak in class (that time)."

The original sentence is about her usual classroom behaviour when she was a child, so the imperfect hablaba is correct.

Can the word order change, for example: "En clase casi no hablaba"? Does that sound natural?

Yes, you can change the word order, and it still sounds natural:

De niña era muy tímida y casi no hablaba en clase.
De niña era muy tímida y en clase casi no hablaba.

The meaning is the same.

Placing "en clase" at the beginning of the second part gives a bit more emphasis to the context (in class) rather than the action. Both versions are correct and idiomatic in Spain.

Could we add a comma after "De niña"? Does it change anything?

Both are possible:

De niña era muy tímida…
De niña, era muy tímida…

In everyday writing and speech, the comma is often omitted, and it’s perfectly fine.

Adding a comma can slightly highlight "De niña" as a separate introductory phrase, but it doesn’t really change the meaning. In informal texts, the version without the comma is very common.