Learn Spanish (Latin America): El adolescente temía perder su amistad. - The teenager feared losing his friendship.

temía is the imperfect tense of the regular -er verb temer (to fear). In Spanish, past emotions, feelings, and mental states (like fearing, knowing, or wanting) usually use the imperfect tense because they describe an ongoing background state rather than a sudden completed action.

Why is perder (to lose) used when the English translation says 'losing'?

In English, we often use the '-ing' form after certain verbs (like 'feared losing'). However, in Spanish, when a verb directly follows another conjugated verb and they share the same subject, the second verb stays in the infinitive (unconjugated) form. So, you simply use perder directly after temía.

Is the word adolescente always masculine?

No, adolescente is a gender-neutral noun. You simply change the article in front of it to show who you are talking about. El adolescente means a teenage boy, while la adolescente means a teenage girl.

How do we know the gender of amistad?

It is feminine (la amistad). A great rule of thumb to remember is that Spanish nouns ending in -tad (like amistad or libertad) and -dad (like ciudad or universidad) are almost always feminine.