8 When a sentence refers to two or more events which happened in the past, it is helpful to think in terms of ‘foreground’ and ‘background’, as in these two English examples: ‘While I was doing the dishes [continuous back- ground], I heard [foreground] the doorbell’; ‘I saw [foreground] Juve a couple of times when I was [continuous background] in Turin’. In Italian, in cases like these, the imperfect expresses the continuous ‘background’ action against which the ‘foreground’ action is seen to occur: 116 Unit 16 * Note that  mentre  (while), in the past, is always followed by the imperfect. If the two events happened at the same time and lasted for the same length of time, then both verbs are in the imperfect: Mentre* dormivate ho preparato la colazione. Mia madre ha conosciuto mio padre quando abitava a Firenze. Mauro non ha preso l’ombrello anche se pioveva. Marco ha telefonato quando eravate al cinema. Non sono uscita perché pioveva. While you were sleeping/asleep I prepared breakfast. My mother met my father when she was living in Florence. Mauro didn’t take the umbrella even though it was raining. Marco phoned when you were at the cinema. I didn’t go out because it was raining. Mentre noi facevamo il compito di matematica, Carla ripassava fi loso fi a. Mentre Alessandro preparava la cena, Claudia leggeva il giornale. Quando io lavoravo al supermercato, mia sorella lavorava in un cinema. While we were doing our maths homework, Carla was revising philosophy. While Alessandro was preparing dinner, Claudia was reading the newspaper. When I worked in the supermarket, my sister worked in a cinema. Il gatto miagolava perché aveva fame. The cat was miaowing because it was hungry.