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Ella lo abrazó mientras el niño lloraba.

Ella lo abrazó mientras el niño lloraba.
She hugged him while the boy was crying.
From Lesson 151:Imperfect versus preterite·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about Ella lo abrazó mientras el niño lloraba.

Why do we use abrazó in one part of the sentence and lloraba in the other?
This sentence shows how the two past tenses work together. lloraba is in the Imperfect tense because it is the ongoing background action ("was crying"). abrazó is in the Indefinido (Preterite) tense because it is a completed action ("hugged") that happened during that background event.
Does the word mientras usually signal the Imperfect tense?
Yes! Mientras means "while". Because it introduces an action that was ongoing or in progress at a specific time, the verb following it is almost always in the Imperfect tense, like lloraba here.
Why is the pronoun lo placed before the verb?
lo is a direct object pronoun meaning "him". In Spanish, these pronouns must go immediately before the conjugated verb, giving us lo abrazó instead of putting the "him" after the verb like we do in English.
Could I say le abrazó instead of lo abrazó?
Yes, especially in Spain! While lo is the standard direct object pronoun for "him", many people in Spain use le for a male person. This is an accepted exception, so Ella le abrazó would also be completely natural here.

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