Questions & Answers about Ellos llegaron después.
What is the difference between después and después de?
In this sentence, después acts on its own as a time word meaning "afterwards" or "later." If you wanted to say they arrived after something specific (like "after the party"), you would use después de (for example, después de la fiesta). Because we don't mention what they arrived after, we just use después.
Why do we use the preterite tense (llegaron) here instead of the imperfect (llegaban)?
We use the preterite (llegaron) because arriving is a single, completed action in the past. The imperfect (llegaban) is used for ongoing or repeated actions, like saying "they used to arrive." Time words like después, ayer, and anoche often trigger the preterite because they point to specific, finished events.
Why does después have an accent mark on the 'e'?
Is the word Ellos strictly necessary here?
No, you could just say Llegaron después. Because the verb ending -aron already tells us the subject is "they" (or "you all"), the pronoun Ellos is optional. It is usually included for emphasis or to clarify that we are talking about a group of males or a mixed group, rather than a group of females (Ellas) or "you all" (Ustedes).
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