Breakdown of El imperio había decorado el altar con estos símbolos.
con
with
estos
these
decorar
to decorate
haber
(auxiliary) have
Questions & Answers about El imperio había decorado el altar con estos símbolos.
How is había decorado formed to mean "had decorated"?
This is the past perfect tense, used for an action that happened before another past action. It combines the imperfect form of the helping verb haber (here, había for "the empire") with the past participle of the main verb (decorado).
Would decorado ever change to decorados to match símbolos?
No. When you use a past participle with the helping verb haber to form perfect tenses, it always ends in -o. It never changes to match the gender or number of the subject or the objects in the sentence.
Why is the word for "these" estos and not estes?
It is a very common trap! The singular word for "this" with a masculine noun is este, but its plural form is always estos. Because símbolos is a masculine plural noun, we use estos.
Why does símbolos have an accent mark?
In Spanish, if the natural spoken stress falls on the third-to-last syllable, it always requires a written accent mark. The stress in símbolos is on the sím syllable, so it must be written with an accent.