Quote:
Originally Posted by literacola
I don't understand why estaba + gerundio would ever be used over the imperfect. Is it just that the subject returned to what they were doing?
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It's true that the imperfect tense can be used for the same situation. The progressive form only serves to give
emphasis to the fact that there was an act in progress at the very second the interruption occurred.
Here are two sample sentences with a truer-to-form English translation:
Estaba comiendo cuando me llamaste.
I was
in the middle of a bite when you called me. (Note the
emphasis given. The progressive form emphasizes that eating was interrupted.)
Comía cuando me llamaste.
I was
eating when you called me. (No emphasis - I was doing this when something else happened.)
The progressive form isn't used nearly as much in Spanish as we English speakers would like to think. (That is why I try to steer folks away from it.
)
The problem lies in how similar the progressive form looks to one of our indicative forms. For example, the indicative mood, present tense, first-person form of
comer is
como. This can be translated into English as
I do eat,
I eat or
I am eating. Many Spanish learning materials don't dwell on this fact, having us think that it only means
I eat.
The progressive form,
estoy comiendo, is often translated as
I am eating, but a closer translation would be: Can't you see I'm eating here?
