Learn Spanish (Latin America): Estaba protegiendo a mis perros en el sótano. - I was protecting my dogs in the basement.

We use the past continuous (the imperfect tense of estar plus a gerund like protegiendo) to emphasize that an action was in progress at a specific moment in the past. It paints a picture of an ongoing action, like saying "I was right in the middle of protecting my dogs."

How do you form the word protegiendo?

To make the gerund (the "-ing" form) for regular "-er" or "-ir" verbs, you drop the infinitive ending and add -iendo. For the verb proteger (to protect), you take off the -er and add -iendo to get protegiendo.

Why is there an a before mis perros? Isn't the "personal a" only for people?

Good catch! While the "personal a" is mostly used when the direct object of a sentence is a person, Spanish speakers also use it for specific pets and animals they feel an emotional connection to. Since these are mis perros (my dogs), they get the personal a.

Estaba can mean "I was", "he was", or "she was". How do we know it means "I was" here?