Breakdown of Hacía años que este cuarto permanecía intacto.
el cuarto
the room
el año
year
que
that / than
este
this
Questions & Answers about Hacía años que este cuarto permanecía intacto.
The translation says 'had remained', but permanecía is in the imperfect tense. Why not use the past perfect (había permanecido)?
When describing an action or state that started in the past and was still ongoing at another point in the past, Spanish uses the imperfect tense. English uses the past perfect ('had remained'), but in Spanish, the structure hacía + [time] + que requires the imperfect (permanecía) to show that the room's intact state wasn't over yet.
Where is the word for 'for' in this sentence?
Spanish doesn't use a literal translation for 'for' in these duration phrases. Instead, the formula hacía + [amount of time] + que covers the whole idea. Literally, Hacía años que... translates to something like 'It made years that...', which is how Spanish expresses that something had been going on 'for years'.
Could I put hacía años at the end of the sentence?
Yes, you can change the word order, but you have to drop the word que. You could say Este cuarto permanecía intacto hacía años. Both versions are very common and mean the exact same thing.
I learned habitación for 'room'. Is cuarto used differently?