Spanish language Q&A Forum

RE: Chupachups (B2) Spanish writing exercise

Sentence:  and about 800 lollipops were produced a day.

Kwizbot: y se producían unos 800 chupachups al día.

Is there any other way this sentence could be constructed, and if so, what, and if not, why not? And what are the rules pertaining to this. 

I know that Spanish is pretty flexible, where I get tangled up, is where it’s not flexible in sentence structure.  i.e. what things are “verboten”?  Thank you, I appreciate any help in this area.

My boyfriend is from Mexico and he says it should be "siempre cuando", and not siempre que, he said siempre que sounds like I am saying " we will hire the new teacher always when we have the budget" and not as long as we have 

"Espero que nos den asiento en una mesa cerca de la ventana"

Please can you explain why here, 'I hope that the give us SEAT on a table close to the window'   Is this a nuance in Spanish?
Thanks

Could I say "era" instead of "fue" as it is a part of description? 

Should I add "estar + gerund" to list of verbs that act like Gustar? 

I don't understand.

In this question I answered "éramos" instead of "fuimos" since the text referred to "used to be."  Why was that wrong? I get that  the "completed action in the past" hint confused the situation. Shouldn't the question be clarified, or am I missing something here? 
Nosotros ________ muy buenos estudiantes.We used to be very good students.(HINT: Refers to a completed action in the past.)

From the lesson:

"Note that while "fue" is generally translated into "was" in English, "era" can be translated into "was", "used to be" and "would be"."

Spanish speakers seem to habitually use the imperfect tense for "deber" where English speakers would use the past tense, e.g.,

"Paul owed her his life" => "Pablo le debía la vida" instead of "Pablo le debió la vida"

"You guys must've figured something out" => "Debíais haber descubierto algo" instead of "Debisteis haber haber descubierto algo"

... and sometimes where English speakers would use the present tense, e.g., "But the Lord said he must go to Ninevah" => "Pero el Señor insistió en que debía ir a Nínive" instead of "Pero el Señor insistió en que debe ir a Nínive."

They also use the imperfect in situations that seem to call for a past-tense conditional ("should have"):

Si querías baile, debías haber recurrido a mí  => If you wanted dancing, you should have come to me

I would have expected "Si querías baile, deberías haber recurrido a mí" (should have). Sometimes I do see "deberías haber" for "should have", and I can't see any pattern to why one is chosen instead of the other.

In some cases, the imperfect is used where the present-tense conditional seems clearly called for, e.g., "debias esperar hasta que llamara" for "you should wait until he calls." There's nothing past-tense-ish about that sentence.

"deberían" ('they should") in particular is used interchangeably with "debían" (literally "in the past they must"), and neither is used for past-tense "they should have".

Can someone explain how Spanish speakers conceptualize these tenses of "deber"?  Does the choice of tense work the same way for "deber" as "owe" and "deber" as "must", or are they treated differently?

This page seems odd