Question 1

Why does this sentence use caminábamos and veíamos instead of the preterite forms like caminamos and vimos?

Accepted Answer

In this context, the imperfect tense is used to describe habitual or repeated actions in the past. It translates best to "used to walk" and "used to see" (or "would walk" and "would see"). If you used the preterite, it would mean a specific, one-time event: "When we walked (that one time), we saw..."

Question 2

Could cuando caminábamos also translate to "when we were walking"?

Accepted Answer

Yes! The imperfect can describe an ongoing background action. If the sentence ended with a sudden preterite verb, like vimos una paloma (we saw a pigeon), it would mean "when we were walking, we saw a pigeon." Because both verbs here are in the imperfect, it establishes a routine, leaning closer to "whenever we used to walk."

Question 3

Why do both caminábamos and veíamos have written accent marks?

Accepted Answer

For caminábamos, all "nosotros" forms of the regular -ar imperfect tense require an accent on the "a" to keep the spoken stress on the correct syllable. For veíamos, the accent on the "i" breaks the vowel blend (diphthong), ensuring the "i" and "a" are pronounced clearly as two separate syllables.

Question 4

Why does the adjective migratorias come after the noun, while muchas comes before it?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, classifying or descriptive adjectives like migratorias (migratory) almost always come right after the noun they describe. However, quantity adjectives like muchas (many) come before the noun, giving us the order: quantity (muchas) + noun (palomas) + description (migratorias).

Cuando caminábamos, veíamos muchas palomas migratorias.

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