Breakdown of La bandada dejó más nidos de los que recordaba.
de
from / of
los
the (masculine plural)
recordar
to remember
que
that / than
más
more
dejar
to stop / to leave (something behind)
la bandada
the flock
el nido
the nest
Questions & Answers about La bandada dejó más nidos de los que recordaba.
Why do we use de los que for 'than' instead of just que?
When you compare a noun to a clause (a phrase with a conjugated verb, like recordaba), you can't just use que. Instead, you use de + a definite article (el, la, los, las) + que. The article has to match the noun you are comparing. Since nidos (nests) is masculine and plural, we use los, giving us de los que.
Since a flock is made up of many birds, why is the verb dejó in the singular form?
La bandada (the flock) is a collective noun. Even though it refers to many birds, the noun itself is singular. In Spanish, verbs always match the grammatical number of the subject, so we use the singular dejó (it left).
Why is recordaba (remembered) in the imperfect tense while dejó (left) is in the preterite?
The preterite dejó is used because the flock leaving the nests was a single, completed action in the past. On the other hand, the memory of those nests was an ongoing state or background detail in the speaker's mind, so it uses the imperfect form recordaba.
The word recordaba can mean 'I remembered' or 'he/she/it remembered'. How do we know it means 'I'?
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