Learn Spanish (Latin America): Al final decidimos quedarnos en casa.

Al final decidimos quedarnos en casa.

In the end we decided to stay home.

Breakdown of Al final decidimos quedarnos en casa.

to stay / to end up / become

Questions & Answers about Al final decidimos quedarnos en casa.

Since decidimos is the exact same word in both the present and past tense, how do we know it means 'decided' here?

Context! The phrase al final (in the end) sets this up as the conclusion to a thought process in the past. It tells us we are looking at a completed past action, so decidimos is the preterite here.

Why didn't we use the past perfect here, like habíamos decidido?

The past perfect is used for an action that happened before another past action (like 'we had decided'). Here, deciding to stay home is the final event in a sequence, not an earlier event that sets the background, so the simple preterite (decidimos) is the correct choice.

Why is it quedarnos instead of just quedar?

The verb quedarse means 'to stay' in a physical place. If you used the non-reflexive quedar, it would mean something else, like 'to be located' or 'to arrange to meet'. Because we are the ones staying, we attach the pronoun nos to the end of the infinitive.

Why is it en casa and not en la casa?

Just like in English, you can skip the article when talking about your own home. En casa means 'at home', whereas en la casa would sound more like 'in the house' (referring to the physical building).