cultivaban

Cultivaban is the third-person plural imperfect indicative form of the Spanish verb cultivar, meaning they were cultivating or they used to cultivate. It can also be understood as you all were cultivating when addressing multiple people in a past context (ustedes in some dialects). The imperfect tense expresses ongoing or habitual actions in the past and provides background information in narratives.

Etymology and meaning: cultivar comes from Latin roots associated with cultivation and tillage, such as cultura and cultus. The form cultivaban shares the regular imperfect ending -aban for plural subjects in the first conjugation (-ar verbs).

Usage: Cultivaban is commonly used to describe continuous past activities or repeated past actions, especially in agricultural or rural settings, or in figurative contexts. Examples include: “Los campesinos cultivaban la tierra durante el verano” and “Cultivaban tomates, maíz y frijoles.” It also appears in narrative backdrops: “Cuando llegó la tormenta, cultivaban el huerto para salvar las plantas.”

Conjugation context: The imperfect form for other subjects is cultivaba (él/ella/usted), cultivaban (ellos/ellas/ustedes), cultivábamos (nosotros). Other tenses and moods of cultivar have related forms such as cultivo, cultivas, cultivamos, etc.

See also: Conjugation of cultivar; Spanish imperfect tense; usage of -aba/-aban endings in Spanish verbs.