Era ... Stava?
Hi.

Would anybody have a link or of an explanation here to the following question please?

In the sentence "Mentre lui dormiva, io mangiavo una mela (While he was sleeping, I was eating an apple)"

If I give you the question "come è stata la colazione? The answer will be "sì, era buona!"

So how is it that "the breakfast was good" is not said stava buona but era buona? The era is present tense and stava is the imperfect!
I understand ero/ eri / era..etc means "was" but this confuses me because of the initial sentence that I provided.

Thanks

Question

Era ... Stava?
Hi.

Would anybody have a link or of an explanation here to the following question please?

In the sentence "Mentre lui dormiva, io mangiavo una mela (While he was sleeping, I was eating an apple)"

If I give you the question "come è stata la colazione? The answer will be "sì, era buona!"

So how is it that "the breakfast was good" is not said stava buona but era buona? The era is present tense and stava is the imperfect!
 I understand ero/ eri / era..etc means "was" but this confuses me because of the initial sentence that I provided.

Thanks

Answer

What you are missing in your strict logical deduction  is this detail:
/stato, stata, stati, state/ form the past particle of /essere/,  therefore question
is expressed with 'essere'. (How has your breakfast been?).
Moreover /essere/ has itself as auxiliary (while in English it has /to have/), but I'm quite sure you know this already!

The rules about /stare/ versus /essere/ are not a few, and exceptions also exist.
If I get the time I'll write another answer.
Bye!