"They used to sleep in the day."

Translation: वे दिन में सोते थे।

[Jasleen2408]

Used to is past tense so we can say pehle

[vinay92]

You can add पहले but it is not required. 'सोते थे' is in the past imperfect tense (which is absent in English) and conveys the same thing as 'used to sleep'.

[YashPalGoy]

Thanks for mentioning it. This info that it is called "past imperfect tense" and lack of it in english thereof is the info that bugged for me quite some time.

[VipulJAIN19]

Not mandatory or necessary.

[foodiedudie]

Yeah you are right

[abhilashaJ920]

Exactly

[mkavin]

"Thin mein ve sothe the" is this wrong?

[Avalokiteshvara4]

Same question.

[Hobi_Loves_Amii]

Yes this is wrong because the words in it are disorderly placed.

[Hobi_Loves_Amii]

This is incorrect because these words are disorderly placed.

[Hobi_Loves_Amii]

Can't it be 'wo din me sote the?'

[VZbLAexr]

I don't see how the word order is wrong, because other lessons had the time element at the beginning of the sentence. I suspect the problem here is that, 'din mein' - in the day - is not specifically in the past, unlike 'char din pehele' - four days ago. Can anyone confirm this?

[vinay92]

It is not wrong per se but 'दिन में वे सोते थे' would only be used as a response to 'What do they do in the day'.

But by placing the postpositional phrase दिन में nearer the verb, it does the job of giving context to the verb.

[VZbLAexr]

Thanks, that makes sense. Perhaps it should be accepted ...

[A1ivi0]

I think we can add पहले

[Sunnymonie]

Why is थे and not थें

[vinay92]

थे is already the masculine plural form (the singular form is था). So, थें is not used.

[aelfgyva]

why not दोपहर? day here means day as opposed to morning or night, right?

[vinay92]

The English sentence does not specify what exact time in the daytime they are sleeping. They may well be sleeping from 9am to 6pm.
दाेपहर is specifically 'afternoon'.