Breakdown of Yo iba a esa estatua y veía la fuente.
yo
I
y
and
ver
to see / to look / appear
esa
that (feminine)
ir
to go
a
to
la fuente
the fountain
la estatua
the statue
Questions & Answers about Yo iba a esa estatua y veía la fuente.
Why does the sentence use iba instead of fui?
Both can translate to "I went," but they are used differently. iba is the imperfect tense of ir (to go). It is used here because the action was a repeated habit in the past, meaning "I used to go." If you used the preterite tense fui, it would mean you went there just once at a specific, completed time.
Is veía an irregular verb?
Yes! ver (to see) is one of only three irregular verbs in the imperfect tense, along with ir and ser. Instead of dropping the entire -er ending to add -ía, it only drops the -r, becoming veía (I used to see). Notice that the í still gets an accent mark.
Why is it esa estatua and not esta estatua?
Does fuente only mean "fountain"?
In a setting like this, fuente means a water "fountain". However, it can also mean a "source" (like a source of information) or a large serving dish for food.
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