Why is this sentence like this...?

Question

"había comida deliciosa" allegedly can be translated to "there was delicious food"

How does "había comida" translate into "there was"?

Unless a literal translation is "it had", as in "it had delicious food".

I know you cannot always get an exact translation, but if the sentence is literally saying "it had delicious food" then I can appreciate that. I just want to see the logic behind it.

Secondly, could someone advise as to why the imperfect tense is used instead of preterite? I can't see that sentence falling into any of the categories for the imperfect.

Thanks in advance

Welcome to SpanishDict. - rac1, Sep 14, 2015

We don't know when the food was served, sometime in the past, part of story, description= imperfect. - annierats, Sep 14, 2015

Answer 1

Regarding the imperfect for haber:

Just as hay means there is/are, había is the most commonly used word for there was/were. These are impersonal verbs always in the 3rd person singular.

Although the preterite form hubo exists it is not commonly used to express there was perhaps because the idea of there was implies a continuous existence in the past. Hubo may also have another nuance and perhaps someone will explain that.

Answer 2

Había= there was

comida = food

deliciosa = delicious

;) - jrschenk, Sep 14, 2015

I now I have a reputation for being nasty, but here, as you see, I'm totally kind and helpful. - annierats, Sep 14, 2015

Was it hard for you, Annie?? :-) - Daniela2041, Sep 14, 2015

Answer 3

I think this is nicely put- so I will quote it (this is in a quote box, not my writing) this is only part of the link, so go to the link for the full explanation.

http://preguntolandia.blogspot.com/2010/05/hubo-vs-habia.html

Había un accidente en la carretera 64.

[“There was an accident on highway 64.” / Think about it in this way, “An accident occurred at some time on 64” or “An accident was occurring/happening on 64.”]

The accident is not the most important part of my speech. It is only a reference to something else that I consider much important than the accident. In other words, this is the background information. In fact, we have no idea for how long that accident was there. It just happens that when I was on 64, I saw that there was an accident. However, when I change to the preterite, the meaning changes:

Hubo un accidente en la carretera 64.

[“There was an accident on highway 64.” / Think of it as “An accident happened on 64,” in other words, the accident begun and finished already.]

Here the focus IS the accident. After this sentence, I will probably provide more specific information, such as the time, the place, etc., but the information will not be as important as the accident.

How do I know when to use either one? It is a matter of context and taste.

And as a bonus, a link to a LaZarus answer (with a the books are wrong, and in many cases you can use either depending on how you want to nuance things attitude):

http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/171639/hubo-vs-haba

Here you will just have to go to the link, or my answer will become too long.

Thanks for providing all this information. Having read this I think maybe my answer is woefully lacking. - Jubilado, Sep 15, 2015