Breakdown of Fue pura porquería lo que tuvieron que comprar.
ser
to be
tener
to have
comprar
to buy
que
that / than
lo
the ... thing (neuter article)
puro
pure / nothing but / only
la porquería
junk
Questions & Answers about Fue pura porquería lo que tuvieron que comprar.
Does pura mean 'clean' or 'unpolluted' in this context?
No. In Latin American Spanish, using puro (and its forms like pura, puros, puras) before a noun often acts as an intensifier meaning 'nothing but', 'sheer', or 'absolute'. Here, pura porquería means it was complete junk, or only junk. Notice that it still acts as an adjective, so it changes to pura to match the feminine singular noun porquería.
How strong of a word is porquería?
It is a colloquial noun that expresses strong distaste, translating well to 'crap', 'junk', or 'garbage'. It literally stems from puerco (pig), implying something filthy or poorly made. While it is not a severe swear word, it is definitely informal and best avoided in highly professional or polite situations.
Why does the sentence use lo que instead of just que for 'that'?
Because 'that' in the English translation actually stands for 'the thing that' or 'that which'. When you refer back to an abstract idea, a whole situation, or an unnamed concept (like the unspecified items they bought), you use the neuter relative pronoun lo que. If you just used que, the sentence would be grammatically incomplete because que usually needs a specific, previously named noun to attach to directly.
Why use the preterite tuvieron que instead of the imperfect tenían que?
Using the preterite for tener que tells us that the action was a closed, completed event: they had an obligation to buy it, and they actually did. If the speaker had used the imperfect (tenían que comprar), it would describe an ongoing past obligation, leaving it completely ambiguous as to whether they actually went through with the purchase.
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