Breakdown of Terminaron reventando todos los globos.
los
the (masculine plural)
terminar
to finish / to end
todo
all / everything
el globo
the balloon
reventar
to burst
Questions & Answers about Terminaron reventando todos los globos.
How does terminaron reventando translate to "they ended up bursting"?
In Spanish, you use the verb terminar (to finish/end) followed directly by a gerund (a verb ending in -ando or -iendo) to express that someone "ended up" doing something. Here, terminaron (they finished) + reventando (bursting) combines to mean the final, perhaps unplanned, result was that they burst the balloons.
Could I use acabaron instead of terminaron in this sentence?
Why don't we need a preposition like de after terminaron?
It depends on what you want to say! If you add de and use the infinitive (terminaron de reventar todos los globos), it means "they finished bursting all the balloons" (they completed the task). By dropping the preposition and using the gerund (reventando), the meaning changes to "they ended up bursting" (a resolution or unexpected outcome).
The verb is reventar (to burst). Since it's a stem-changing verb, why isn't it revientando?
Reventar does have an e to ie stem change in the present tense (like él revienta). However, -ar and -er verbs never keep their stem changes in the gerund (-ando / -iendo) form. Only -ir verbs (like dormir becoming durmiendo) change their stems in the gerund. Therefore, the regular stem is used to make reventando.
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