Learn Spanish (Latin America): De verdad no lo sabía.

De verdad no lo sabía.

I really did not know.

Breakdown of De verdad no lo sabía.

no, not

saber

to know (facts) / to hear from (someone)

de verdad

really, truly

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Questions & Answers about De verdad no lo sabía.

Why is sabía used here instead of the preterite supe?

In Spanish, the verb saber changes meaning slightly depending on the past tense you use. The imperfect sabía describes an ongoing state in the past, meaning "knew" (or "didn't know"). If you used the preterite no supe, it would sound like a sudden event, meaning "I didn't find out" or "I didn't realize".

Why is there a lo in this sentence when the English translation just says "I didn't know"?

English often drops the "it" in phrases like "I didn't know", but Spanish usually requires a direct object pronoun to refer back to the information being discussed. The lo stands in for that information (I didn't know it). Saying just no sabía can sometimes sound incomplete in Spanish.

Since sabía can mean "I knew" or "he/she knew," how do we know it means "I" here?

The imperfect tense forms for yo and él/ella/usted are identical for all verbs. Without a subject pronoun like yo, you have to rely entirely on the context of the conversation. If there were any risk of confusion, the speaker would simply add the pronoun: Yo de verdad no lo sabía.

Could I use realmente instead of de verdad here?