Spanish language Q&A Forum

This was the question in the test that led me to this lesson,  but the lesson doesn't address the issue of choosing the correct past tense.

Ustedes ________ separados el año pasado.You were separated last year.
The hint tells you to use the tense for estaban, but I don't understand why since this seems to be talking about a definitive time that something happened.  Either the action of separating happened last year or the circumstance of being separated happened last year. Can someone explain why we should choose estaban over estuvieron (ustedes) besides the fact that the "hint" tells us to?
Thanks in advance for  any help!

Hola Inma,

Is the use of "ser" in this sentence to indicate where the carnival took place? It caught me out because "It was in Cádiz" sounded as if it was talking about the location (estar), rather than being about where the event happened. If so, I remembered that there is a specific lesson about this in Level A1 "Using Ser not Estar when talking about when / where something takes place." I'm not sure if my thinking is right.

If it is, would it be a good idea to include this lesson in the "All related grammar and vocal list?"

Saludos

John 

Hola,

I'm intrigued that the threats are interpreted with a question mark, rather than an exclamation mark. Are they interchangeable?

Gracias,

Hola Inma,

Would "ocurrió" be an acceptable alternative here?

Saludos

John

Hola,

Would just like to say thanks for adding these preposition lessons recently (de been really helpful as well).

Hoping that definite article use is also on your upcoming list! (I find that the deployment of them isn't directly explained anywhere on Kwiqiz, and I really trust your teaching)

Gracias,

Can I suspend my membership in the French course until I am ready to resume?

Thank you, Inma

FYI...This answer was marked incorrect:

Yo coincido contigo en ese tema. I agree with you on that subject.HINT: Conjugate "coincidir" in El Presente

The question in the lesson was "Do you have a toaster?" (it did not specify formal or informal 'you').  My answer was Tiene usted and was marked wrong.  I think it's correct

In the lesson "Use Hace + length of time + que + El Indefinido "  we have this example:

-¿Dónde está Jaime? -Hace dos horas que se fue.
-Where is Jaime? -He left two hours ago.

In the lesson "When to use the perfect tense versus the simple past in European Spanish (Perfecto vs Indefinido)" we have this example:

Note: If you talk about time ago using hace then the tense will still depend on whether the event in question was 'today' or another day:

Lo he visto hace 2 minutos.
I saw him two minutes ago.

Are they both correct?  It they are, that tells me that when using "Hace + length of time + que + El Indefinido", we could either of these?

Jim Kurczewski