Spanish imperfect progressive: estaba + gerund (was doing)

The Spanish imperfect progressive is the “was/were doing” tense. You build it with the imperfect of estar (estaba, estabas, estaba, estábamos, estabais, estaban) plus a gerund — the -ando / -iendo form of the verb. So estaba hablando means “I was talking” and estaban comiendo means “they were eating”.

Its job is to zoom in on an action that was in progress at a moment in the past, especially one that gets interrupted by something else.

How to form it

Take estar in the imperfect and add the gerund. Regular gerunds are easy: -ar verbs take -ando (hablar → hablando), and -er / -ir verbs take -iendo (comer → comiendo, vivir → viviendo).

Estaba escribiendo un correo.
I was writing an email.

A few gerunds are irregular and worth memorizing. When the stem ends in a vowel, -iendo becomes -yendo: leer → leyendo, oír → oyendo, ir → yendo. Some -ir verbs change their stem vowel: pedir → pidiendo, dormir → durmiendo, decir → diciendo.

Ella estaba leyendo cuando llegué.
She was reading when I arrived.

When to use the imperfect progressive

Reach for estaba + gerund when you want to picture an action unfolding at a particular past moment. It is especially natural when a longer action is cut off by a shorter one — the interruption goes in the preterite.

Estaba cocinando cuando sonó el teléfono.
I was cooking when the phone rang.

¿Qué estabas haciendo a las ocho?
What were you doing at eight?

The long background action (“was cooking”) takes the imperfect progressive, and the sudden event (“rang”) takes the preterite. That split is the same aspect logic behind the choice of preterite vs imperfect; the progressive just makes the “in-progress” part more vivid.

Imperfect progressive vs simple imperfect

Here is the subtlety: the simple imperfect can already express an ongoing past action, so cocinaba and estaba cocinando often overlap. The difference is emphasis. The progressive insists that the action was physically in progress at that instant; the simple imperfect is broader and also covers habits, repeated actions and description.

Cocinaba cuando sonó el teléfono. / Estaba cocinando cuando sonó el teléfono.
I was cooking when the phone rang. (both natural; the second is more vivid)

The key limit: use the simple imperfect only for habits and repeated actions. The progressive describes a single stretch in progress, not a routine.

De niño, jugaba al fútbol todos los sábados.
As a child, I used to play football every Saturday.

Two actions at the same time

When two background actions overlap, you can put both in the imperfect progressive and join them with mientras (while). This paints two things unfolding side by side at the same past moment.

Mientras yo estaba estudiando, mi hermano estaba viendo la tele.
While I was studying, my brother was watching TV.

You will also hear other verbs replace estar before a gerund to add a shade of meaning: seguir for “still” (seguía lloviendo, it was still raining), or ir and andar for movement (iba corriendo, he was running along). These are close cousins of the imperfect progressive, but estar + gerund is the plain, all-purpose form to learn first, and it covers the great majority of “was doing” sentences you will need.

Common mistakes

Using the progressive for a habit

A repeated or habitual past action takes the simple imperfect, never the progressive.

De niño, estaba jugando al fútbol cada sábado. → De niño, jugaba al fútbol cada sábado.
As a child, I played football every Saturday.

Getting the gerund wrong

Vowel-stem verbs use -yendo, not -iendo.

Estaba leendo el periódico. → Estaba leyendo el periódico.
I was reading the newspaper.

Leaving estar in the present

For a past action in progress, estar must be in the imperfect, not the present.

Estoy cocinando cuando llegaste. → Estaba cocinando cuando llegaste.
I was cooking when you arrived.

The imperfect progressive is really one small pattern — estaba plus a gerund — repeated across many verbs, which makes it perfect for drilling. Fluera has you build the estar-plus-gerund pair and drop it into interrupted-action sentences, so you can practice Spanish until “estaba haciendo” comes out without assembling it piece by piece.

Practice