ELONIO
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El arquitecto hizo el diseño en esa época.

El arquitecto hizo el diseño en esa época.
The architect made the design in that era.
From Lesson 172:The passive voice (fue por)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about El arquitecto hizo el diseño en esa época.

Since the current lesson is about the passive voice, how would we rewrite this active sentence as a passive one?
To make it passive, the object (el diseño) becomes the new subject. We use the preterite of ser (fue) plus the past participle of hacer (hecho), followed by por and the doer. The passive version is: El diseño fue hecho por el arquitecto en esa época.
Why is hizo in the preterite tense here instead of the imperfect, given that an era sounds like an ongoing period of time?
Even though en esa época refers to a broad past era, the action of making this specific design (hizo) was a single, completed event. If we used the imperfect (hacía), it would imply he used to make the design repeatedly or was in the middle of making it.
Why does hizo have a Z in it when the infinitive hacer has a C?
The verb hacer is highly irregular in the preterite. The stem changes to hic- for most forms, such as hice and hicimos. However, for the he/she/it form, it changes to hizo with a z to keep the soft S pronunciation. If it were spelled with a C, it would incorrectly have a hard K sound.
Is época only used to talk about historical eras?
Not at all! época is a very common word for any period or time. While era works perfectly in this sentence, you will often translate en esa época simply as at that time or back then. It is also used for seasons or times of the year, such as la época de lluvias.

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