Breakdown of Hacía un año que el hombre sufría por la soledad.
un
a, an (masculine)
el año
year
el hombre
the man
que
that / than
por
for / by / through / in/during (part of the day)
sufrir
to suffer
hacer
(of time) for / ago
la soledad
solitude
Questions & Answers about Hacía un año que el hombre sufría por la soledad.
Why do we use the imperfect sufría here instead of a past perfect form to match "had been suffering"?
English uses the past perfect continuous ("had been suffering") for an action that started in the past and continued up to another past moment. Spanish handles this by combining hacía (setting the past time frame) with the imperfect tense, sufría. The imperfect shows that the suffering was still an ongoing background action at that specific moment in the story.
Could I say hace un año instead of hacía un año?
Why does the sentence use por in sufría por la soledad rather than de?
You will see both sufrir de and sufrir por, but they have different nuances. Sufrir de is generally used for specific physical or diagnosed illnesses (like sufrir de asma). Sufrir por is used when the suffering is caused by an emotional state, a situation, or an external circumstance, which fits perfectly with soledad (loneliness).
Why is there a la before soledad when the English translation is just "loneliness"?
Spanish requires definite articles (el, la, los, las) before abstract nouns when talking about them in a general sense. Since soledad (loneliness) is an abstract concept, it requires the article la.
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