Question 1

Why does this sentence use escribía instead of the preterite escribió?

Accepted Answer

Escribía is the imperfect tense. We use it here because it describes an ongoing background action in the past (she was writing letters) or a repeated habit (she used to write letters). If we used the preterite escribió, it would mean she wrote a specific set of letters once, and the action was viewed as a single completed event.

Question 2

The translation says "wrote", but can escribía also mean "was writing"?

Accepted Answer

Yes! The Spanish imperfect tense doesn't have just one English equivalent. Depending on the context of the story, escribía can be translated as "she wrote" (as a regular habit), "she used to write", or "she was writing".

Question 3

How do I remember the imperfect endings for verbs like escribir?

Accepted Answer

Escribir is a regular -ir verb. To make the imperfect, you drop the -ir and add the ending for "she" (the queen), which is -ía. A helpful trick is that both -er and -ir verbs share the exact same endings in this tense, and every single one of those endings has a written accent on the í (like -ías, -íamos, and -ían).

Question 4

Why is there no article before cartas? Shouldn't it be las cartas?

Accepted Answer

Just like in English, we leave out the article when talking about an unspecified quantity of things. Saying escribía cartas simply means she was writing letters in general. If the sentence said escribía las cartas, it would specifically mean she was writing the letters that were already mentioned earlier in the conversation.

La reina escribía cartas en el palacio.

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