Breakdown of ¡Qué horrible! Estuvimos en el aeropuerto todo el día.
en
in / on / at
el día
the day
estar
to be (location/state)
el aeropuerto
airport
qué
what
todo
all / everything
horrible
horrible
Questions & Answers about ¡Qué horrible! Estuvimos en el aeropuerto todo el día.
Why is the word for "we were" estuvimos instead of following the regular past tense rules?
Estar (to be) is highly irregular in the preterite (completed past) tense. Its base changes entirely to estuv-, and it uses a special set of endings for this group of verbs. For "we", you add -imos to make estuvimos. Notice there are no accent marks—these highly irregular past tense verbs don't use them!
Why do we use estuvimos (from estar) here instead of fuimos (from ser)?
Because the speakers are talking about a physical location (being at the airport). The rule you learned for the present tense still applies in the past tense: always use estar to talk about where something or someone is located.
Why does ¡Qué horrible! translate to "How horrible!"? Shouldn't "how" be cómo?
In Spanish, when you want to make an exclamation like "How [adjective]!", you always use ¡Qué...! followed by the adjective. You generally only use cómo for "how" when you are asking a question (like "¿Cómo estás?") or describing how an action is done.
Why is it todo el día (all day) instead of toda la día?
Even though it ends in -a, the word día is a common exception to the gender rules: it is a masculine noun (el día). Because it is masculine and singular, the word for "all" must match it, becoming todo. Also, be careful not to confuse this with the plural todos los días, which means "every day" rather than "all day".
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