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Past Continuous

Average: 4.3 (4 votes)
Thu, 06/26/2008 - 00:01 — Chris McCarthy

waiting

'He was waiting for me when I got home.'

Why do we use the past continuous?

The past continuous (also known as the past progressive) is used to describe what we were doing a specific point in the past.

compare these two sentences:

'I played golf yesterday.' = (past simple) the action of playing golf is more important than the time it was happening.

'I was playing golf at 2pm.' = (past continuous) what was happening at that specific time is important. We do not know when the action started , or when it finished.

How to make the past continuous

Was/were + ing verb is the past continuous. Take a look at some past continuous example sentences:

'I was taking a bath at midnight.'
'Tom was walking his dog at 6am.'
'They were watching the news when I called.'

Now complete the sentences using the correct verbs.

  • Simon was a DVD when I walked into the room.
  • I was a meeting at lunchtime.
  • I brought my umbrella because it was when I left the house .
  • The children were already down in their chairs when the teacher came in.
  • Ariana didn't hear me because she was to music on her stereo.
  • She was her car slowly because she was nervous about having an accident.
  • The fish were all in the pond.


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Comments

Thu, 11/13/2008 - 07:16 — nihatyavas

with

'Tom was walking (with) his dog at 6am.'

Thu, 11/13/2008 - 07:17 — nihatyavas

i --) I

'They were watching the news when i (Sleepy called.'

Fri, 02/20/2009 - 12:50 — sureu

The fish were all swimming

The fish were all swimming in the pond
I cannt understand why used in this sense

Fri, 04/17/2009 - 11:15 — Yura

Re: sureu

I agree, I think that the fish were all caught in the pond.

Thu, 02/24/2011 - 12:24 — nikhilkhanna

the children were  

the children were   already   sat ((in place of sitting))))  down in their chairs when the teacher came in.

Thu, 02/24/2011 - 14:52 — Manish2811

correct

*1 i suppose it's a correct sentence coz  "when the teacher came in " describes that teacher came in at a particular time in the past so we should use the past continous instead of past simple 

*2 we would use past simple if the sentence was like this "the children were already sat down in thier chairs when the teacher came in yesterday"

In the second situation the time isn't clear that's to say particular time isn't mention