Antea wrote:It’s about the right verb and the right conjugation. Why in English you don’t say “It was did an error”, for example? Because it’s a mistake, and it’s not the right conjugation.
Well, even after having explained what I was asking about, this answers of yours still isn't much more than "it is wrong because it is wrong"...
I'd just like to add that there are several possible ways to gain a better understanding of, for example, Spanish verbs. And one of them is to take a really close look at the subtle nuances that are expressed using the various Spanish past tenses. Other than that, I am not re-asking my question again, especially after linguoboy already provided the information I was looking for.
For explanatory purposes only: If I was asked why one doesn't say "It was did an error", I could tell the person asking that one simply would use "It was an error" (or also "there was an error") instead. But I also could break it down some more, in case this is sort of required for that person to gain a better understanding.
Now this would be an example of such a breakdown (although it is also possible to speak about it using far less words than I did, but I simply wanted to explain):
We wouldn't say "It was did an error", but (among other possibilities) "It was an error". This is because "was" simply is used to talk about something that happened in the past. And as for "did", while it is also a past tense word, we wouldn't need it at all. It is the past tense of "to do", and "it was did an error" would mean, step by step:
"it": Referring to something that already has been explicitly or implicitly mentioned, or that hasn't been mentioned at all, other than the listener has got the possibility to find out what the speaker is talking about by doing some additional thinking.
"was": This is like saying "to be", but for the 3rd person singular of the past tense.
"did": This is like saying "to do", but also for the 3rd person singular of the past tense
"was did" in combination would mean the 3rd person singular of the past tense of "to be" and "to do" joint together. Now that is a combination we wouldn't need at all. Among the reasons for "was" being sufficient is that "was" already fully conveys the idea of something that happened in the past tense. If we add "did" to it afterwards, we would introduce some superfluous information, because everything that happened also automatically was being done by someone or something. So we don't need it, and not including it also has the benefit of additional brevity, so we simply omit it.
"an error": obvious.