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¿Quién estaba salvando al hombre del río?

¿Quién estaba salvando al hombre del río?
Who was saving the man from the river?
From Lesson 113:Past continuous (estaba -ndo)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about ¿Quién estaba salvando al hombre del río?

Why is it estaba salvando instead of salvó (saved)?
estaba salvando is the past continuous tense. It is used to talk about an action that was in progress in the past ("was saving"), rather than a completed event ("saved"). It sets the scene, often highlighting an ongoing action right before something else happened!
Since we don't know how many people were saving him, why do we use the singular estaba?
The question word quién (who) is singular, so it always takes a third-person singular verb like estaba. If you already knew or strongly suspected multiple people were involved, you could use the plural form quiénes and ask, "¿Quiénes estaban salvando...?"
Why does the sentence say al hombre instead of just el hombre?
This is the "personal a" at work! In Spanish, when a specific person is the direct object of a verb (the one being saved), you must put an a before them. Since hombre is masculine, a combines with el (the) to make the mandatory contraction al.
Is del río another contraction?
Yes! Just like a + el becomes al, the preposition de (from) + el (the) must combine to form del. So de el río becomes del río. These are the only two mandatory contractions in Spanish!

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