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Hace un año, mi vecina se volvió bastante reservada.

Hace un año, mi vecina se volvió bastante reservada.
A year ago, my neighbor became quite reserved.
From Lesson 221:Deep character changes (volverse)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about Hace un año, mi vecina se volvió bastante reservada.

Why use se volvió for 'became' instead of se puso?
In Spanish, volverse + adjective is used to talk about deep, lasting changes in a person's character or personality, just like the neighbor becoming 'reserved' here. If you used se puso, it would sound like a sudden, temporary physical or emotional reaction.
Why does reservada end in an -a here?
Even though it comes after a verb of change (se volvió), it is still an adjective describing the neighbor. Since mi vecina is a feminine noun, the adjective must match it and take the feminine form reservada.
I thought bastante meant 'enough'. Why is it translated as 'quite' here?
bastante is a flexible word! When used with a noun, it usually means 'enough' or 'a lot of' (like having enough time). But when used right before an adjective like reservada, it acts as an adverb meaning 'quite' or 'fairly'.
How exactly does hace un año translate to 'a year ago'?
To say 'ago' in Spanish, you use the formula hace + [amount of time]. It literally translates to 'it makes a year'. It is a fixed structure used with past tenses like the preterite (se volvió) to show exactly when an action happened in the past.

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