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¿Qué cultivaban los campesinos cuando llovía bastante?

¿Qué cultivaban los campesinos cuando llovía bastante?
What did the farmers grow when it rained quite a bit?
From Lesson 111:Past habits with when (cuando)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about ¿Qué cultivaban los campesinos cuando llovía bastante?

Why are both cultivaban and llovía in the imperfect tense?
Because this sentence is asking about a past habit or repeated situation. The phrase cuando llovía sets up a recurring condition (meaning 'whenever it rained'), and cultivaban describes what they routinely used to do during those times. Using the imperfect for both verbs shows that these actions happened repeatedly together in the past.
Why is the subject los campesinos placed after the verb cultivaban?
In Spanish questions that start with a question word like qué, the verb almost always comes immediately after that question word. It feels much more natural to say ¿Qué cultivaban los campesinos...? instead of putting the subject before the verb like we do in English.
Who is the subject of llovía?
Nobody! Just like in English when we say 'it rained,' Spanish uses llover (to rain) as an impersonal verb. It is always conjugated in the third-person singular (llovía) because there is no specific person or thing doing the raining.
I thought bastante meant 'enough'. Why does it mean 'quite a bit' here?
Bastante is a flexible word! Depending on the context, it can mean 'enough' (like having enough money) or it can mean 'quite a lot' or 'fairly.' In this sentence, llovía bastante means it rained a good amount or quite a bit.

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