Word
En el expediente de la beca faltaba una fotocopia, así que tuve que posponer la cita.
Meaning
A photocopy was missing from the scholarship file, so I had to postpone the appointment.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of En el expediente de la beca faltaba una fotocopia, así que tuve que posponer la cita.
yo
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una
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en
in
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Questions & Answers about En el expediente de la beca faltaba una fotocopia, así que tuve que posponer la cita.
Why is faltaba used here instead of faltó?
Because faltaba is the imperfect, and it presents the missing photocopy as a background situation or an ongoing state at that moment.
- Faltaba una fotocopia = a photocopy was missing
- It describes the situation in the file when the speaker discovered the problem.
If you said faltó una fotocopia, it would sound more like a completed event: a photocopy was missing / failed to be there at a specific moment, which is less natural here.
In this sentence, the logic is:
- first, there was a situation: a photocopy was missing
- because of that, a completed action happened: tuve que posponer la cita
So the combination faltaba + tuve que is very natural.
Why does faltar work like that? Is una fotocopia the subject?