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La granjera tenía muchas vacas y ovejas.

La granjera tenía muchas vacas y ovejas.
The farmer had many cows and sheep.
From Lesson 146:Describing the past with the imperfect·Spanish (Spain)

Breakdown of La granjera tenía muchas vacas y ovejas.

y
and
mucho
a lot
tener
to have
el granjero
the farmer
la vaca
the cow
la oveja
the sheep

Questions & Answers about La granjera tenía muchas vacas y ovejas.

Why do we use the imperfect tense tenía here instead of the preterite tuvo?
We use the imperfect to describe a situation or an ongoing state in the past. The farmer owning the animals was an ongoing fact for a period of time, not a sudden or completed action.
Would the sentence change if it were a male farmer?
Yes. You would change the feminine la granjera to the masculine el granjero. The rest of the sentence would stay exactly the same.
Since muchas comes before both vacas and ovejas, what happens if one of the animals is a masculine word?
In this sentence, both vacas (cows) and ovejas (sheep) are feminine, so the feminine plural muchas matches both perfectly. If one noun were masculine, like cerdos (pigs), you would usually repeat the adjective to be safe: muchas vacas y muchos cerdos.
Since cows and sheep are living things, why isn't there a personal a after tenía?
The personal a is mostly used for specific people or beloved pets. For general farm animals or livestock like these cows and sheep, you do not use it.

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