Breakdown of Hacía horas que la desesperanza dominaba su mente.
su
his/her/its/their/your (formal)
la hora
the hour
que
that / than
hacer
(of time) for / ago
la mente
the mind
dominar
to master
la desesperanza
the despair
Questions & Answers about Hacía horas que la desesperanza dominaba su mente.
Why do we use hacía and dominaba here instead of the past perfect tense for 'had been dominating'?
In English, we use the past perfect continuous ('had been dominating') to show an action started in the past and continued up to another past moment. In Spanish, when you state the duration of an ongoing past action (like horas), you use the structure hacía + time expression + que + imperfect verb. Because the despair was still dominating his mind at that narrative moment, we use the imperfect dominaba.
How would this sentence look if the despair was still dominating his mind right now in the present?
You would shift both verbs to the present tense: Hace horas que la desesperanza domina su mente (Despair has been dominating his mind for hours). Moving the narrative to the past simply requires shifting hace to hacía and domina to dominaba.
Could I put the time expression at the end of the sentence instead?
Why is there a la before desesperanza when the English translation is just 'despair'?
In Spanish, abstract nouns used in a general or universal sense require a definite article, especially when they act as the subject of the sentence. Therefore, 'despair' becomes la desesperanza, just as 'love' would be el amor in a general statement.
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