Learn Spanish (Spain): ¿Qué dibujabas en el cuaderno? - What were you drawing in the notebook?

¿Qué dibujabas en el cuaderno?

What were you drawing in the notebook?

Breakdown of ¿Qué dibujabas en el cuaderno?

in / on / by (means of transport) / about (after pensar)

Questions & Answers about ¿Qué dibujabas en el cuaderno?

Why does the verb end in -abas?

The verb is dibujar (to draw). By dropping the -ar and adding -abas, you get dibujabas, which is the informal you form in the imperfect tense. As your current lesson shows, this tense is used for ongoing or repeated actions in the past.

Why do we translate dibujabas as "were you drawing" instead of "did you draw"?

The imperfect tense often translates to "was/were doing" something in English. It describes an ongoing action at a specific time in the past. If you wanted to ask about a single completed action ("What did you draw?"), you would use the preterite tense instead: ¿Qué dibujaste?.

Where is the word for "you" in this sentence?

It is built right into the verb. Because the -abas ending is only ever used for tú (informal singular you), the listener already knows who you are asking. You could say ¿Qué dibujabas tú en el cuaderno? for emphasis, but leaving the pronoun out is the standard way to speak in Spanish.

Can en mean both "in" and "on" the notebook?

Yes! The Spanish preposition en covers both "in" and "on" (as well as "at"). In English, we usually say we draw "in" a notebook, but if you were drawing "on" the cover of the notebook, you would still just say en el cuaderno.