"Hacía... que" and Duration in the Past
To express how long an action had been happening up to a certain point in the past, Spanish uses a specific structure involving the verb hacer and the imperfect tense.
While English typically uses the past perfect continuous ("I had been doing..."), Spanish uses this formula:
- Hacía
- time expression + que
- [verb in imperfect]
- time expression + que
By using hacía, you set the background time frame. The main verb must be in the imperfect tense because it describes an action that was still ongoing at that moment in the past.
| The castaway had been living alone for two years. | Hacía dos años que el náufrago vivía solo. |
| I had been building the raft for a month. | Hacía un mes que yo construía la balsa. |
Because this structure describes an ongoing state or background action, it is highly useful for setting the scene in a narrative, such as describing the realities of surviving on a deserted island.
| The survivor had been sleeping on the shore for three days. | Hacía tres días que el superviviente dormía en la orilla. |
| The man had been suffering from loneliness for a year. | Hacía un año que el hombre sufría por la soledad. |
Negative Duration
To express how long it had been since an action last occurred—meaning the action had not been happening for that amount of time—simply place no immediately before the conjugated main verb.
| He had not been walking along the shore for weeks. | Hacía semanas que él no caminaba por la orilla. |
Setting the Scene
In storytelling, you will frequently see this structure used to establish how long a situation had been going on before another event happened or a certain condition took hold.
| Despair had been dominating his mind for hours. | Hacía horas que la desesperanza dominaba su mente. |
| The castaway had been hallucinating for a month because he was going crazy. | Hacía un mes que el náufrago alucinaba porque enloquecía. |