Spanish-English translation

Question

Hola, does “estuvo trabajando” mean had been working? I thought it means “was working” and “había estado trabajando” means had been working. Muchas gracias, Shirley.
El pobre chico se tuvo que acostar ________. The poor guy had to lie down because he had been working for so many hours.

de tantas horas como estuvo trabajando

Silvia Piriz · Accepted Answer

Hola Shirley S.
These two forms look very similar, but they don’t mean the same thing.
“Estuvo trabajando” is pretérito indefinido + gerundio and it means “was working” for a completed action in the past. It describes an activity that took place over a period of time, but the whole event is seen as finished.
Example:
El pobre chico se tuvo que acostar de tantas horas como estuvo trabajando. → … because he was working for so many hours.
On the other hand, “había estado trabajando” is pluscuamperfecto compuesto, and it means “had been working” — it refers to an action that was happening before another past action.
So in your sentence, the correct form is “estuvo trabajando”, because we are simply describing what led to him needing to lie down, not placing it relative to another past event.
I hope this helps clear up the difference. Let me know if you’d like more examples!
Saludos
Silvia