Learn Spanish (Spain): Estábamos buscando un enchufe cerca de la litera. - We were looking for a socket near the bunk bed.

We use the imperfect continuous (estábamos buscando) to describe an ongoing background action in the past, setting the scene. It translates to 'we were looking'. If we used the preterite (estuvimos buscando), it would emphasize that the search took place for a defined block of time that has already ended.

Why isn't there a word for 'for' after 'buscando'?

In Spanish, the verb buscar means 'to look for' all by itself. You never need to add por or para after it to translate the English 'for'. So, buscando un enchufe directly translates to 'looking for a socket'.

Does the word 'un' in 'un enchufe' have anything to do with the impersonal pronoun 'uno'?

No, here un is simply the masculine indefinite article meaning 'a' or 'an' (a socket). The impersonal pronoun uno (meaning 'one', as in 'one must be careful') stands alone to replace a noun, whereas the article un must always be placed directly before a masculine singular noun.

Why do we need the word 'de' in 'cerca de la litera'?

The adverb cerca means 'close' or 'nearby' on its own. However, when you want to say that something is close to a specific object or place, you must link them using the preposition de, forming cerca de.