Breakdown of Cualquiera iba a llorar al ver lo trágico que iba a ser.
ser
to be
ver
to see / to look / appear
ir
to go
a
to
llorar
to cry
que
that / than
lo
the ... thing (neuter article)
cualquiera
any (whichever) / anyone
al
upon / when (+ infinitive)
trágico
tragic
Questions & Answers about Cualquiera iba a llorar al ver lo trágico que iba a ser.
Why does this sentence use "iba a llorar" and "iba a ser" instead of the conditional tense like "lloraría" and "sería"?
Using the imperfect of ir + a + infinitive (like iba a llorar) expresses a "future in the past." It highlights what was setting up to happen, intended to happen, or expected to happen at that specific moment in the past. While you could use the conditional (lloraría) to say "anyone would cry," using iba a emphasizes the looming expectation that they were going to cry.
How does "lo trágico que" translate to "how tragic"?
In Spanish, a very common way to say "how [adjective]" is to use the neuter article lo + the adjective + que. So, lo trágico que literally functions a bit like "the tragic degree to which," but it is the standard, natural way to translate "how tragic" in a statement like this.
I usually see "any" translated as "cualquier". Why is it "cualquiera" here?
Why use "al ver" for "upon seeing" instead of a phrase with "cuando" (when)?
The structure al + infinitive is the most natural and concise way to say "upon doing [something]" or "when doing [something]" in Spanish. While you could technically use cuando followed by a conjugated verb, al ver is preferred here because it completely avoids the need to conjugate a second verb and figure out the correct past tense to match the rest of the sentence.
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