verb agreement

Question

In the sentence "Mientras yo dormiá, el avion salió" the verbs don't agree. Also in the sentence "Cuando yo estaba en la ferreteriá, compré una escalera." Why don't they agree? Thanks!

Answer 1

First the word after Mientras yo should be dormía written accent on i not a (same with ferretería).

That being corrected, dormía does agree with yo and salió agrees with avión.

In the second sentence estaba agrees with yo and so does compré.

So what do the verbs mean? dormía I was sleeping, salió it left (the plane avión), estaba I was, and compré I bought.

When we talk about verbs "agreeing" we mean they agree with their subject. Be aware that there are many, many more forms of any verb than in English. Click on the word Conjugate on the blue bar above and enter a verb and you'll see all the forms of that verb.