Breakdown of El mapache dejó de gruñir cuando encendieron la luz.
de
from / of
dejar
to stop / to leave (something behind)
cuando
when (statement)
encender
to turn on
la luz
light
el mapache
raccoon
gruñir
to growl
Questions & Answers about El mapache dejó de gruñir cuando encendieron la luz.
Why does cuando take the indicative encendieron here instead of the subjunctive?
We use the indicative after cuando when referring to an action that is treated as a fact, such as an event that has already happened or one that happens regularly. Because turning on the light is a completed past event here, we use the preterite encendieron. You would only use the subjunctive if the action hadn't happened yet, for example: El mapache dejará de gruñir cuando enciendan la luz (The raccoon will stop growling when they turn on the light).
Could I use paró de instead of dejó de to mean 'stopped'?
Yes, both dejar de + infinitive and parar de + infinitive mean 'to stop doing something,' and they are often interchangeable. However, dejar de is much more common in everyday Spanish for expressing that someone quit or ceased an action. Parar de is also correct but parar by itself often emphasizes the physical halting of a movement.
Since the subject isn't specified, does encendieron refer to specific people?
It could, but in Spanish, the third-person plural is frequently used as an impersonal subject, similar to how we use 'they' in English when we don't know (or don't care) exactly who did it. In this context, it often serves the same purpose as the passive voice in English, meaning 'when the light was turned on' or 'when someone turned on the light.'
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