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El funcionario estaba llenando esos formularios ayer.

El funcionario estaba llenando esos formularios ayer.
The official was filling out those forms yesterday.
From Lesson 121:Since and until (desde, hasta)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about El funcionario estaba llenando esos formularios ayer.

Is a funcionario the same thing as a "functionary"?
While they share the same root, funcionario is the standard Spanish word for a "civil servant", "government worker", or public "official". It doesn't have the negative or overly bureaucratic tone that "functionary" sometimes implies in English.
Why use estaba llenando instead of just llenó?
Estaba llenando is the past continuous tense. Just like in English, it emphasizes that the action of filling out the forms was ongoing or in progress yesterday. If you said llenó (the simple past tense), it would simply state that he "filled out" and finished them.
Why use the imperfect tense estaba here instead of the preterite estuvo?
When setting the scene or talking about an action that was ongoing in the past ("was filling out"), Spanish usually pairs the imperfect form estaba with the -ando action word. You generally only use the preterite (estuvo llenando) if you are highlighting a very specific, enclosed block of time (for example, if you said he was filling them out for exactly three hours).
I notice it says esos formularios. How do I know whether to use esos or estos?
Esos means "those", referring to things that are a short distance away from the speaker (or near the person being spoken to). If the forms were right in front of the speaker ("these forms"), you would use estos.
How could I add desde (since/from) or hasta (until) to this sentence?
While this sentence just uses ayer (yesterday) as a general time marker, you could easily swap it out to show a specific time duration! For example, you could say ...desde el lunes hasta ayer (...from Monday until yesterday) or ...desde la una hasta las tres (...from one until three) to show exactly how long the official was working on those forms.

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