Breakdown of Él acababa de comprar una baratija de bronce.
él
he
de
from / of
comprar
to buy
una
a, an (feminine)
Questions & Answers about Él acababa de comprar una baratija de bronce.
Why is acababa in the imperfect tense here?
The phrase acabar de followed by an infinitive means 'to have just done' something. When used in the present tense (like él acaba de comprar), it means 'he has just bought'. Putting it in the imperfect tense (acababa de comprar) shifts it to the past, meaning 'he had just bought'. It describes the background situation right before another past event happened.
Does the word baratija have anything to do with barato?
Why do we say de bronce instead of having a direct adjective for 'bronze'?
In English, we can just put a material right before a noun ('a bronze trinket'). In Spanish, you almost always use the preposition de (of) plus the name of the material to describe what something is made of. Literally, it translates to 'a trinket of bronze'.
Since the lesson is about using andar + gerund, could we say andaba comprando here?