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El niño escondía los calcetines debajo de la cama.

El niño escondía los calcetines debajo de la cama.
The boy used to hide the socks under the bed.
From Lesson 180:Expanding Your Wardrobe·Spanish (Spain)

Breakdown of El niño escondía los calcetines debajo de la cama.

el niño
the boy / the child
la cama
the bed
debajo de
under
esconder
to hide
el calcetín
the sock

Questions & Answers about El niño escondía los calcetines debajo de la cama.

Why is the verb escondía used here instead of escondió?
Escondía is in the imperfect tense. We use the imperfect here to talk about a repeated, habitual action in the past, which is why it translates to "used to hide". If the boy only hid the socks once on a specific occasion, you would use the preterite tense: escondió.
What is the base verb for escondía?
The infinitive verb is esconder, which means to hide. Because it is an -er verb, it takes the -ía ending to form the imperfect tense for the "he/she/it" form.
Why use debajo de instead of just bajo for "under"?
Debajo de is the standard way to express physical location when something is directly underneath a specific object (like socks under a bed). Bajo can also mean under, but it is more commonly used in abstract contexts, like bajo presión (under pressure) or for numbers like bajo cero (below zero). Notice that debajo requires the preposition de before the noun.
What is the singular form of los calcetines?
The singular form is el calcetín. Because the singular word ends in the consonant n and has a stressed final syllable marked by an accent mark, you add -es to make it plural and drop the written accent.

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