Breakdown of Estuvieron casados diez años.
estar
to be (location/state)
el año
the year
diez
ten
casado
married
Questions & Answers about Estuvieron casados diez años.
Why does this sentence use estar instead of ser for being married?
In Spanish, marital statuses like being married (casado), single (soltero), or divorced (divorciado) are generally treated as states or conditions, so they usually go with estar. You can think of it as the result of a change or an action (getting married) rather than an inherent, defining trait of a person.
Since being married is an ongoing state, why use the preterite estuvieron instead of the imperfect estaban?
Because the sentence specifies exactly how long the state lasted (diez años). Whenever a past action or state has a clearly defined time frame with a start and an end, Spanish uses the preterite tense. If you just said 'They were married when they lived in Spain' without a specific duration, you would use estaban.
Where is the word for 'for' in diez años? Shouldn't it be por diez años?
You can absolutely say por diez años or durante diez años, but in Spanish, it is very common and completely natural to just drop the preposition entirely when stating how long an event lasted.
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