Me - Past Continuous and Past Simple
Me - Past Continuous and Past Simple
Me - Past Continuous and Past Simple
1. The most common use of the past continuous tense is to talk about
something that was happening around a particular time in the past.
What were you doing at 8 o’clock last night? I was watching television.
2. We often use the past continuous and the past simple tense together.
When this happens, the past continuous describes a longer, ‘background’
action or situation and the past simple describes the action or events.
When I woke up this morning it was raining and my father was singing in the
kitchen.
I was walking home, whistling happily, when I saw two masked men run out of
the bank.
Often, the ‘action’ described by the past simple tense interrupts the ‘situation’
described by the past continuous tense.
Notice that the past continuous describes ‘situations’ that go on for some
time – ‘skiing’ and ‘playing’ but the past simple describes ‘actions’ that happen
quickly – ‘broke’ and ‘rang’.
When they arrived, Jeff was cooking dinner. Jeff started cooking before they
arrived.
When they arrived, Jeff cooked dinner. Jeff started cooking dinner after they
arrived.
With most verbs the past tense is formed by adding -ed:
call >> called; like >> liked; want >> wanted; work >> worked
But there are a lot of irregular past tenses in English. Here are the most
common irregular verbs in English, with their past tenses:
be was/were
begin began
break broke
bring brought
buy bought
build built
choose chose
come came
cost cost
cut cut
do did
draw drew
drive drove
eat ate
feel felt
find found
get got
give gave
go went
have had
hear heard
hold held
keep kept
know knew
leave left
lead led
let let
lie lay
lose lost
make made
mean meant
meet met
pay paid
put put
run ran
say said
sell sold
send sent
set set
sit sat
speak spoke
spend spent
infinitive irregular past
stand stood
take took
teach taught
tell told
think thought
understand understood
wear wore
win won
write wrote
Use
We use didn’t (did not) to make negatives with the past tense:
PAST CONTINUOUS
The past continuous is formed from the past tense of be with the -ing form of
the verb:
Compare:
Compare: