Breakdown of El castillo fue hermosísimo. Ojalá estuviera cerca.
ser
to be
estar
to be (location/state)
cerca
close / near
hermoso
beautiful (handsome, lovely)
el castillo
the castle
ojalá
hopefully / I hope
Questions & Answers about El castillo fue hermosísimo. Ojalá estuviera cerca.
How do we get the irregular form estuviera?
To form the imperfect subjunctive, you always start with the ellos/ellas form of the preterite (simple past) tense. For estar, that form is estuvieron. You drop the -ron ending to get the stem estuvie-, and then add the imperfect subjunctive ending for the 'it' form, which is -ra. That gives us estuviera.
Why does ojalá trigger the past subjunctive (estuviera) if the translation says 'I wish it were close' right now?
In Spanish, when you use ojalá to make a wish about the present that is impossible or contrary to reality (the castle is not actually close), you use the imperfect (past) subjunctive. It is similar to English, where we say 'I wish it were' instead of 'I wish it is'. If you used the present subjunctive (Ojalá esté cerca), it would mean 'I hope it might be close' (a real possibility).
Why do we use ser (fue) for the first sentence, but estar (estuviera) for the second?
What does the -ísimo ending do to hermosísimo?
Adding -ísimo to an adjective is a common way to say 'very' or 'extremely'. Here, hermoso (beautiful) becomes hermosísimo (extremely beautiful). Notice that we drop the final -o of hermoso before adding the ending, and it requires an accent mark!
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