Breakdown of Hacía mucho tiempo que escuchábamos un ruido escalofriante.
un
a, an (masculine)
mucho
many / a lot
escuchar
to listen
el tiempo
time
el ruido
the noise
que
that / than
hacer
(of time) for / ago
escalofriante
chilling
Questions & Answers about Hacía mucho tiempo que escuchábamos un ruido escalofriante.
Why does this use escuchábamos (imperfect) when the English translation says 'had been hearing'?
In Spanish, when an action started in the past and was still ongoing at a specific moment in the past, you use the formula hacía + [amount of time] + que + [imperfect indicative]. Even though English uses 'had been hearing,' Spanish just uses the imperfect escuchábamos to show it was an ongoing background event.
Can I switch the order of the sentence so the time expression is at the end?
Yes, you can put the time expression at the end! If you do, you must drop the word que. It would be: Escuchábamos un ruido escalofriante hacía mucho tiempo.
Why does the Spanish use escuchábamos (from escuchar, to listen) instead of oíamos (from oír, to hear)?
While textbooks often teach that oír is 'to hear' and escuchar is 'to listen,' everyday Latin American Spanish frequently uses escuchar for both. Because this noise was going on for a long time and drawing their attention, escuchábamos is perfectly natural here to mean 'we were hearing'.
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