Breakdown of Nos encerraron para que fuéramos por el laberinto.
ir
to go
nos
to us / ourselves / us (direct object)
por
for / by / through / in (during a part of the day)
para que
so that
encerrar
to lock in
el laberinto
the maze
Questions & Answers about Nos encerraron para que fuéramos por el laberinto.
How do we get the irregular form fuéramos from the verb ir?
To build the imperfect subjunctive, we take the "they" form of the simple past. For ir, that is fueron. We drop the -on to get the stem fuer-, and add the "we" ending -amos, giving us fuéramos. (Note that ser and ir share this exact same form!)
Why is there an accent mark on fuéramos?
In the imperfect subjunctive, the nosotros (we) form always gets an accent mark on the vowel right before the ending. This keeps the spoken stress on the same syllable as the other forms (like fuera and fueras).
Why do we use the subjunctive (fuéramos) instead of the indicative (fuimos) here?
The phrase para que (so that) always forces the following verb into the subjunctive. Because the main action of locking us in (encerraron) happened in the past, the subjunctive verb must also be in the past tense.
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