Eran las siete de la noche?
How in the world does that translate to "It was seven o'clock at night"
doesnt Eran mean they were(to be) how is that " it was"? i am so confused.
6 Answers
Well since 7 is more than 1, you say eran (it's plural, from imperfect of ser), and when referring to time in past tense, the imperfect tense is used, thus you will hear, "eran las las siete de la noche" However you will hear the singular as well very often.
ser + la/las + number is just the idiom used for telling the time in Spanish.
Just as Dates use the implied word día (es el segundo [día] de mayo... ) and why they are all masculine (es el [día] lunes); Time uses the implied word hora(s). It why the times are feminine. Son las tres [horas].
son las cuatro [horas] de la tarde.
eran las siete [horas] de la noche.
era la una [hora] de la noche]
I understand that we need to use eran but what would "fueron las siete de la noche" translate to?????? Would we be understood if we were to accidently say "fueron"????
Quoting from the book ¡Búscalo!:
For all hours of the day except one o'clock, son las expresses it is; for one o'clock, it is is expressed by es la. There is no comparable Spanish expression for the English o'clock.
To tell time in the past, eran las (it was) is used for all hours except one o'clock, in which case era la (it was) is used.
If by "translate" you mean that you expect some sort of simple word-for-word correspondence between the two languages, you are in for a great deal of disappointment/frustration (and this would be true of any other language as much as or more so than with Spanish). The two sentences are typical of what many/most people would say at/in reference to that time of day. It does not mean that like the two sides of a mathematical equation (or chemical formula) that they are "equal". They express the same idea but they express it differently.
By the way, in your "It was 7 o'clock" the "o'clock" is simply a contraction that evolved over time for "7 of the clock". Can you, actually, explain what that means? Can you not also say "It was 7 at night (in the evening)." or "It was 7 pm."? How do you explain the differences How do you translate one of those expressions (in English) to one of the others (also in English)? How is it possible that there can be more than one way to say something in English? If they mean the same thing, how can they employ different words?
