Question 1

Why is it tomada with an -a at the end instead of tomado?

Accepted Answer

In the passive voice (built with ser + past participle), the past participle acts like an adjective. It must match the subject in both gender and number. Since la ciudad is feminine and singular, the participle changes to tomada to match it.

Question 2

Why use fue (from ser) instead of estuvo (from estar)?

Accepted Answer

We use ser here to focus on the action of the city being captured by someone (the army). This is the true passive voice. If you used estar (La ciudad estuvo tomada), it wouldn't describe the action of capturing, but rather the resulting state—meaning the city was in a "captured state" or occupied for a period of time.

Question 3

Why is it fue tomada (preterite) and not era tomada (imperfect)?

Accepted Answer

Using the preterite fue means the capturing of the city is viewed as a single, completed event in the past. If you used the imperfect era tomada, it would mean the city "used to be taken" repeatedly or was in the process of being taken as a background event.

Question 4

I know por and para can both mean "for", but here it means "by"?

Accepted Answer

Exactly! In the passive voice, the person or group doing the action (known as the agent) is always introduced by por. You will never use para to say "by [someone]" in a passive sentence.

Question 5

Could I use the passive with "se" here and say Se tomó la ciudad por el ejército instead?

Accepted Answer

No, you can't use the se passive when you specifically name who did the action. The se passive (Se tomó la ciudad) is only used when the "doer" is unknown or unimportant. Because you are explicitly naming el ejército as the doer, you must use this analytic passive structure with fue ... por.

La ciudad fue tomada por el ejército.

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