Breakdown of Sentía un cansancio de mil demonios por el calzado.
de
from / of
un
a, an (masculine)
mil
one thousand
por
for / by / through / in/during (part of the day)
sentir
to feel
el cansancio
fatigue
el demonio
demon
el calzado
footwear
Questions & Answers about Sentía un cansancio de mil demonios por el calzado.
How does the phrase un cansancio de mil demonios work to mean "a hellish exhaustion"?
Can I use the intensifier de mil demonios with other nouns?
Why does this sentence use por instead of para for "because of"?
Por is the standard preposition to express the cause, reason, or motive behind an action or feeling. Since the footwear is the cause of the exhaustion, we use por el calzado. If you used para, it would bizarrely suggest you were feeling exhausted in order to benefit the footwear!
Why is the verb sentía in the imperfect tense here?
The imperfect tense is used to describe ongoing physical or emotional states in the past. Sentía sets the scene by describing how the speaker was feeling over an unspecified period of time. If they had used the preterite (sentí), it would sound like a sudden, isolated pang of exhaustion that happened at one specific moment.
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