Learn Spanish (Latin America): Cuando la cosecha era buena, había demasiada comida en el campo. - When the harvest was good, there was too much food in the countryside.

This lesson focuses on using cuando (when) to talk about past habits. Because we are talking about a repeated situation in the past (meaning "whenever the harvest was good"), we use the imperfect tense for both verbs.

Is había the past tense of hay?

Exactly! Había is the imperfect past tense of hay. Just like hay means "there is" or "there are," había means "there was" or "there were" to describe ongoing situations in the past.

Why is it demasiada ending in "-a" instead of demasiado?

When a word like demasiado (too much) acts as an adjective describing a noun, it has to match that noun's gender. Since comida (food) is a feminine word, demasiado changes to demasiada.

Does campo mean "field" or "countryside"?

It means both! El campo can refer to a specific field on a farm, but it is also the standard Spanish term for "the countryside" or rural areas in general.