Breakdown of El mirador desde el que miramos el valle era hermoso.
ser
to be
mirar
to look at / to watch
que
that / than
el valle
valley
hermoso
beautiful (handsome, lovely)
desde
since / from (a starting point)
el mirador
the viewpoint
Questions & Answers about El mirador desde el que miramos el valle era hermoso.
Why do we use el que here instead of just que?
When referring to things after a longer preposition like desde (from), you cannot use que by itself. You must use a complex relative pronoun that agrees in gender and number with the noun it replaces. Since el mirador is masculine and singular, we use el que. You will mostly only see a bare que referring to things after short prepositions like a, de, en, or con.
Could we use el cual instead of el que in this sentence?
Yes, desde el cual would be perfectly correct and means exactly the same thing. El cual tends to sound slightly more formal or literary than el que, but after prepositions, they are often interchangeable. Both must agree with the masculine singular noun el mirador.
Is miramos in the present or past tense here?
Why use the imperfect tense era instead of the preterite fue?
We use the imperfect era because we are describing an ongoing characteristic or physical state of the viewpoint in the past (it was beautiful). If we used fue, it would sound like an event that started and ended, which does not fit a static description of a physical place.
Learn El mirador desde el que miramos el valle era hermoso and more in Spanish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free