Se iba acercando

[Tyrn]

Hi,

This means He/it was getting closer. However, the idea of irse is leaving, getting out of here, etc. Am I missing something?

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

"Ir" + verb ending with "ando"/"-iendo" means to do something progressively over time.
Sometimes you can use the verb "estar" instead, but with "ir" the idea of time going by is stronger, I think.


- El río se va/está secando poco a poco. -> The river is drying out.
- Es triste ver cómo el abuelo se ha ido/estado deteriorando con la enfermedad. -> It's sad to see grandfather wearing down because of his sickness.
- Iremos considerando todas las propuestas. -> We'll consider each and every proposal as we receive them.
- Mis joyas fueron desapareciendo con los años. Mis sobrinos se las robaron. -> My jewels slowly disappeared over the years. My nieces and nephews stole them from me.


In imperative form, it means to start doing something:
- Ve preparando la comida, que las visitas ya van a llegar. -> Start fixing food; the guests are almost here.
- Vayan lavando la ropa y mientras limpio la casa. -> Start doing the laundry and I'll clean the house in the meantime.
- Vaya abriendo la puerta, yo guardo el coche. -> Go open the door, I'll put the car in the garage.




And the best sentence in Spanish ever:
- Me voy a ir yendo. -> It must be something like "I'm getting ready to start to be leaving". It's a colloquial way to say we're leaving a place, like at the end of a party, to avoid abruptly saying "ya me voy".

[Rusty]

The pronoun se actually accompanies acercar, not ir.

acercarse = to get close

The same thing can be seen in a few of Angelica's sentences (see the meanings of the pronominal verbs secarse and deteriorarse).

[Tyrn]

Thanks! I suspected something like that from the beginning, but ContextReverso grouped se iba together, while giving the correct translation

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

I agree with Rusty. I forgot about the "se" in the answer.