Questions & Answers about Sì, le scambiavamo sempre a scuola.
Why is scambiavamo in the imperfect tense here instead of the passato prossimo?
The imperfect tense is used for ongoing or repeated habits in the past. The word sempre (always) is a big clue! Because exchanging them was a regular past habit ("we always exchanged them"), the imperfect scambiavamo is the correct choice here.
How is scambiavamo formed from the verb scambiare (to exchange)?
To form the imperfect of an -are verb, you drop the -are ending from the infinitive to get the stem. For scambiare, the stem is scambi-. Then you add the imperfect endings. For noi (we), the ending is -avamo, which gives us scambiavamo.
What does the le refer to at the beginning of the sentence?
The word le is a direct object pronoun meaning "them" for feminine plural nouns. We don't know exactly what they are exchanging from this sentence alone, but it could be something like le figurine (the stickers) or le carte (the cards). Notice that these pronouns usually go directly before the conjugated verb.
Why do we say a scuola instead of combining the preposition with an article like alla scuola?