Modern Spanish Grammar: A Practical Guide

Estábamos durmiendo cuando entraron los ladrones.

We were sleeping when the burglars broke in.

Ella estaba cocinando cuando él llegó.

She was cooking when he arrived.

¿Qué estabas haciendo cuando te llamé?

What were you doing when I called you?

 17.3 (p. 74); 17.4 (p. 75); 20.1 (p. 96)

73.10.2 Imperfect

A less frequent alternative for expressing the above is to use the imperfect instead of the

construction with estar. A few verbs, like hacer, decir, hablar, are very common in this

context in spoken Spanish, but other verbs occur less frequently, except in literary

style. Here are some examples:

¿Qué hacías?

What were you doing?

Me decías que habías visto a Pedro.

You were telling me that you had seen Pedro.

¿Con quién hablabas?

Who were you speaking to?

The tendency, even with these verbs, is to use the construction with the imperfect of

estar+ gerund when the speaker wants to put the emphasis on the action in progress.

73.11 Describing past events which occurred before another past

event or situation

In a sentence like ‘The meeting had finished when he arrived’, the first event ‘had

finished’ occurred before a subsequent event ‘he arrived’. This first event is expressed in

Spanish with the pluperfect (e.g. había terminado, ‘it had finished’), while for the

subsequent event or situation we normally use the preterite. Often, the second event is

not expressed at all, but is understood from the context.

La reunión había terminado cuando él llegó.

The meeting had finished when he arrived.

El avión ya había salido.

The plane had already left.

 17.9 (p. 78)

73.12 Expressing possibility, probability or uncertainty with regard

to something in the past

Possibility, probability or uncertainty in relation to past actions or states may be

expressed with the following constructions (see also 48 ):

Expressing possibility, probability or uncertainty, etc. 73.12