Question 1

Why is the verb aprendía instead of the preterite aprendí?

Accepted Answer

Aprendía is the imperfect tense, which we use to talk about repeated, ongoing, or habitual actions in the past. Here, it translates to "used to learn" or "was learning", showing that learning a lot was a continuous experience over time, not just a one-time event.

Question 2

What is the pattern for making -er verbs like aprender imperfect?

Accepted Answer

For regular -er and -ir verbs, you drop the ending and add -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, or -ían. So for aprender, the "I" form becomes aprendía. Notice that every single one of these endings has an accent mark on the í!

Question 3

Why include the word yo before aprendía?

Accepted Answer

In the imperfect tense, the "I" form and the "he/she/it/you formal" form are exactly the same. Both "I used to learn" and "he used to learn" are aprendía. Adding yo makes it completely clear who you are talking about.

Question 4

Why does the sentence use the present tense gustan but the past tense aprendía?

Accepted Answer

It is completely fine to mix tenses when it makes logical sense! The speaker currently likes the subjects (present: Me gustan), and the reason is because of what they used to do in those classes (past: yo aprendía).

Question 5

A quick refresher: why is it gustan with an 'n' if it means "I like"?

Accepted Answer

The verb gustar literally means "to be pleasing to". The things that are pleasing are the subjects (las materias). Since "subjects" is plural, the verb must be the plural form gustan ("they are pleasing"). The me part simply shows that they are pleasing to me.

Me gustan las materias porque yo aprendía mucho.

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