Learn Spanish (Spain): La cabañucha no tenía luz y hacía mucho frío. - The miserable cabin had no light and it was very cold.

The suffix -ucha is a pejorative (negative) ending. When added to cabaña (cabin), it turns it into cabañucha, which means a run-down, miserable, or ugly cabin. It shows the speaker's negative view of the building's condition.

Why are the verbs tenía and hacía in the imperfect tense rather than the preterite?

The imperfect tense is used here to set the scene and describe ongoing background conditions in the past. The sentence describes the general, ongoing state of the cabin at that time, rather than a specific event with a clear beginning and end.

Why does the sentence use mucho frío instead of muy frío?

In Spanish weather expressions using the verb hacer, frío is actually a masculine noun meaning 'coldness', not an adjective. Because you are literally saying it made 'a lot of coldness', you must use the adjective mucho to modify the noun, rather than muy.

Does no tenía luz just mean it was physically dark inside?

It usually means more than just lacking sunlight. In the context of a house or building, luz frequently refers to electricity or power. Therefore, no tenía luz implies that the cabin did not have electricity.