Spoken English Class Note 1

What is the Past Continuous Tense?

The past continuous tense is one which is used very frequently in the English language and is made up of an -ing verb preceded by the past tense of the verb ‘to be.’ For example ‘the animals were running gracefully through the field.’ This is an easy concept to understand and once you have mastered it, you will be able to speak much more freely about the past.

The Past Continuous is used to describe actions that began in the past and often continued for a short period of time after the action started.

The structure of the Past Continuous Tense is:

Was/were + V-ing (Present Participle)

Examples of the Past Continuous Tense

1. My kids were playing basketball together for hours yesterday.
2. My daughter was planning to join the school band but chose the choir instead.
3. I was talking to my neighbor when she told me about the fire that started across the street.
4. Our school was holding a pep rally when the fire alarm went off.
5. I was not giving to charity last year, but then I received a raise and started contributing to the local animal shelter.
6. While I was getting ready for bed, I turned on the news to see what had happened during the day.
7. My team was holding an offsite lunch n learn but discontinued it when people stopped showing up.
8. My brother was dropping me off at school every morning so I didn’t have to wait in the cold for the bus.
9. I was hanging more and more elaborate Christmas lights every year until I realized I couldn’t do anything bigger this year so I stopped.
10. My friend was sleeping over every Friday for three months during the Summer but then we had to stop when school started.

The Past Continuous Tense Usage

The past continuous is used:

To describe parallel actions

The past progressive is often used to denote an action that was interrupted by an event, or for two actions taking place in parallel.

Examples:

• While I was washing the dishes, I heard a loud noise.
• While you were washing the dishes, Sue was walking the dog. To express specific Time as an Interruption

To describe what someone was doing at a particular point in time

Example:

I was working in the garden all day yesterday.

That could also be expressed using the simple past, as I worked…, which implies that the action is viewed as a unitary event (although the effective meaning is not very different).

To express interrupted action in the past

Often the past progressive is mixed with the past simple to show what was happening when something happened.

Examples:

• I was driving to work when I crashed my car.
• I watched a movie while I was flying to Dubai.

To describe repetition and irritation

Example:

He was always complaining in class.

Note

For stative verbs that do not use the progressive aspect, the simple past is used instead.

Example:

At three o’clock yesterday we were in the garden.