Breakdown of Los accionistas pensaron que la estrategia era mala.
ser
to be
los
the (masculine plural)
pensar
to think / to plan
que
that / than
Questions & Answers about Los accionistas pensaron que la estrategia era mala.
Why does this sentence use era instead of the conditional tense being taught in this lesson?
The tense depends on the original thought! If the shareholders had thought "The strategy WILL BE bad" (será mala), you would use the conditional: pensaron que la estrategia sería mala. But here, their original thought was in the present tense: "The strategy IS bad" (es mala). When reporting a present-tense thought in the past, it shifts to the imperfect tense (era).
Could we use the preterite fue instead of the imperfect era here?
Not usually. In reported speech, an ongoing state in the present shifts backward to the imperfect tense. Using era shows that the strategy being bad was an ongoing description or opinion at the exact time they were thinking about it.
Why does accionistas end in an "a" if it uses the masculine article los?
The word for shareholder, accionista, ends in the suffix "-ista". Nouns ending in "-ista" (like turista or artista) use the exact same spelling for both men and women. To show gender, you only change the article. Los accionistas refers to a group of male shareholders, or a mixed group of male and female shareholders.
What is the root word of accionistas?