Question 1

Why is decidió in the preterite but tenía in the imperfect?

Accepted Answer

This is a classic past-tense pairing. decidió is the sudden, completed action (he made the decision at a specific moment), while tenía describes the background condition or ongoing state (he was feeling sleepy leading up to and during that decision).

Question 2

I usually hear posponer for "to postpone". Is postergar used differently?

Accepted Answer

They mean exactly the same thing and are often used interchangeably in Latin America. postergar can sound slightly more elevated, but it is extremely common in everyday speech, news, and business contexts when talking about putting things off or delaying plans.

Question 3

Why does it say mucho sueño instead of muy sueño for "very sleepy"?

Accepted Answer

In English, "sleepy" is an adjective, so you use the adverb "very". In Spanish, the expression is tener sueño (literally "to have sleep"), where sueño is a noun. Because you are describing the amount of a noun, you must use the adjective mucho (a lot of) rather than muy (very).

Question 4

Why does héroe need an accent mark?

Accepted Answer

The letters o and e are both strong vowels, meaning they do not blend together and instead form two separate syllables (hé-ro-e). Words ending in a vowel naturally put the spoken stress on the second-to-last syllable (ro). Since this word is actually pronounced with the stress on the third-to-last syllable (hé), it needs a written accent mark to override the default spelling rule.

El héroe decidió postergar su misión porque tenía mucho sueño.

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