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Cuando éramos jóvenes, viajábamos en una carreta con caballos.

Cuando éramos jóvenes, viajábamos en una carreta con caballos.
When we were young, we traveled in a cart with horses.
From Lesson 111:Past habits with when (cuando)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Cuando éramos jóvenes, viajábamos en una carreta con caballos.

Why are éramos and viajábamos in the imperfect tense rather than the preterite?
This lesson focuses on using cuando with the imperfect to talk about past habits or how things used to be. éramos sets the background (we were young), and viajábamos describes an ongoing, repeated action in that past. When you talk about how things were back in the day, the imperfect is your go-to tense!
Could viajábamos also translate to 'we used to travel'?
Yes, absolutely! The imperfect tense often translates to 'used to do something' in English. Translating it as 'we used to travel' captures the feeling of a repeated past habit perfectly and fits right in with cuando éramos jóvenes.
Why does jóvenes have an accent mark when the singular joven does not?
It has to do with keeping the spoken stress on the same syllable. In joven, the natural stress falls on the jo. When we make it plural by adding -es, the word gets an extra syllable (jo-ve-nes). To make sure we still put the emphasis on jo according to Spanish pronunciation rules, we have to add a written accent mark: jóvenes.
Both éramos and viajábamos have accent marks. Is there a pattern for this?
Yes! In the imperfect tense, the nosotros (we) form always gets an accent mark. This helps maintain the correct pronunciation so the stress does not shift to the end of the word. For regular -ar verbs, it always falls on the á right before -bamos (like viajábamos), and for the irregular verb ser, it falls on the é (éramos).
Why do we use en for 'in a cart'?
In Spanish, en is a very flexible preposition that can mean 'in', 'on', or 'at'. When talking about being inside or traveling via a mode of transportation, en is the standard word to use, just like you would say en carro (by car) or en tren (by train).

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