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Ellos descubrieron el origen hace un mes.

Ellos descubrieron el origen hace un mes.
They discovered the origin a month ago.
From Lesson 108:Time ago (hace)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Ellos descubrieron el origen hace un mes.

Why does the sentence use hace to mean "ago"?
While hace normally means "it makes" or "it does" (from the verb hacer), in time expressions it translates to "ago". A key difference to notice is the word order: in English, "ago" goes at the end of the phrase ("a month ago"), but in Spanish, hace goes at the beginning of the time phrase (hace un mes).
Why is the verb descubrieron in the preterite (completed past) tense here?
Because hace un mes ("a month ago") tells us exactly when this action happened and ended. When you use hace + [time] to talk about an event that is completely finished, you pair it with the preterite tense.
What is the dictionary form (infinitive) of descubrieron and how is it conjugated?
The infinitive is descubrir (to discover). Since it's a regular -ir verb, to say "they discovered" in the preterite tense, you remove the -ir ending and add the "they" ending -ieron.
How do we know origen is masculine?
We can see it's masculine because it uses the "the" article el. As a helpful rule of thumb for vocabulary building, most Spanish nouns ending in -en are masculine (like el examen or el tren), though you will occasionally see feminine exceptions like la imagen.

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