Breakdown of Admiré la silueta después de que el mentor curvara el tronco.
de
from / of
que
that / than
la
the (feminine)
después
after / afterwards
el mentor
the mentor
admirar
to admire
el tronco
log
curvar
to bend
la silueta
the silhouette
Questions & Answers about Admiré la silueta después de que el mentor curvara el tronco.
Why is curvara in the imperfect subjunctive if the mentor actually bent the trunk?
This is a specific feature of Latin American Spanish! Traditional grammar states that después de que referring to a completed past action should take the indicative (curvó). However, in everyday Latin American Spanish, it is extremely common to use the imperfect subjunctive (curvara) instead, even for facts that definitively happened.
Does this mean después de que now works exactly like antes de que?
In Latin American practice, they end up looking similar in the past tense, but the rules are different. Antes de que always requires the subjunctive because the action hadn't happened yet at the time of the main verb. With después de que, using the subjunctive for completed past actions is a regional variation—in other regions like Spain, you would still hear the indicative (curvó).
Could I say curvase instead of curvara in this sentence?
Grammatically, yes. Both curvara and curvase are valid forms of the imperfect subjunctive and mean the exact same thing. However, in Latin America, the -ra ending (curvara) is far more common in spoken and written Spanish than the -se ending.
Why do we use después de que + conjugated verb instead of just después de + infinitive?
Because there is a change of subject. The person doing the admiring ("I") is different from the person bending the trunk ("the mentor"). When the subjects are different, you must use después de que with a conjugated verb. You would only use después de + infinitive if the subject were the same (e.g., Admiré la silueta después de curvar el tronco = I admired the silhouette after I bent the trunk).
Why use the preterite admiré instead of the imperfect admiraba for "I admired"?
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