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El huracán rompió la ventana mientras estábamos leyendo.

El huracán rompió la ventana mientras estábamos leyendo.
The hurricane broke the window while we were reading.
From Lesson 112:Past continuous (estaba -ndo)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about El huracán rompió la ventana mientras estábamos leyendo.

Why is rompió in the preterite but estábamos is in the imperfect?
This is a classic pattern for telling a story in the past! The past continuous (estábamos leyendo) sets the scene of a background action that was already in progress. The preterite (rompió) is used for the sudden, completed action that interrupted it.
Could I just say mientras leíamos instead of mientras estábamos leyendo?
Yes, you can! Both can mean 'while we were reading.' Using estábamos leyendo (the past continuous) just puts a little extra emphasis on the fact that the action was actively happening right at that exact moment.
Why is the gerund of leer spelled leyendo with a 'y' instead of an 'i'?
Normally, to make an '-ing' word (a gerund) for an '-er' or '-ir' verb, you add '-iendo'. But if the stem of the verb ends in a vowel, like le- from leer, having three vowels in a row like 'leiendo' is hard to pronounce. Spanish changes the unaccented 'i' to a 'y' to make it leyendo.
Why does estábamos have an accent mark?
All verbs conjugated in the nosotros (we) form of the imperfect tense have an accent mark on the third-to-last syllable. This tells you to keep the spoken stress on that 'a' instead of letting it naturally fall on the second-to-last syllable, which is the default rule for words ending in 's'.

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