Breakdown of Înainte, scrisorile erau trimise prin poștă.
fi
to be (sunt, ești, este, suntem, sunteți, sunt)
scrisoarea
the letter
poșta
the post office / the mail / the postal service
trimite
to send
Questions & Answers about Înainte, scrisorile erau trimise prin poștă.
Why does înainte mean "in the past" here instead of "before"?
While înainte often means "before" or "forward", when used on its own to describe a general timeframe like this, it translates to "in the past", "formerly", or "back in the day". If you wanted to say "before the mail", you would need to add "de" (înainte de poștă).
Why does the participle trimise end in "-e"?
This sentence uses the passive voice to say the letters "were sent" (erau trimise). In Romanian passive sentences, the past participle acts like an adjective and must match the subject in gender and number. Because scrisorile (the letters) is a feminine plural noun, the base participle trimis changes to the feminine plural form trimise.
Why use erau (imperfect) instead of au fost (perfect compus) for "were"?
The imperfect tense (erau) is used here because sending letters by mail was a habitual, ongoing reality over a long period of time in the past. If you were talking about a specific, one-time event, like "the letters were sent yesterday", you would use the completed past tense (perfect compus): au fost trimise.
Why is it prin poștă and not prin poșta with the definite article?
In Romanian, most simple prepositions like prin, în, or din are followed by a noun without the definite article, unless the noun has an adjective or extra description attached to it. Since we are just saying "by mail" generally, poștă stays in its undefined base form.