Welcome to English grammar spot, this lesson
is about the past simple and the past continuous.
Take a look at these sentences:
I watched the telly last night.
I was watching the telly last night.
The first sentences contains a past simple,
the second sentence is in the past continuous.
In this lesson I'm going to show you how to form a past simple
and how to form a past continuous and
when to use past simple and
when to use a past continuous and more important
the difference between the two. First we are going to take a look at how to form
these past tenses. As you might know
in the English language we have regular
and irregular verbs. And this this is important to remember
when forming a past simple. To make a past simple
for the regular verbs, we use the
base form of the verb and add 'ed.''
For example: He worked late last night
The irregular verbs
have their own and unique past tense so you need to study those carefully.
I bought a new t-shirt yesterday.
The infinitive form of the verb bought is to buy.
With the past continuous
we do not need to worry about regular and
irregular verbs. Because all verbs that take a past continous
whether they're regular or irregular,
are formed by using
was or were, the past tenses of the verb 'to be',
and the base form of the verb and '-ing.'
For example: He was working last night
I was buying a t-shirt, when I saw her yesterday.
Now let's have a look at how to use a past simple
and how to use a past continuous and how to keep them apart.
we use a past simple for actvities
that were finished in the past, we usually use
a time frame: He worked late last night.
Here last night is waht we consider
timeframe. I bought a new T-shirt yesterday
Here yesterday
is a timeframe. A past continuous
is used for activities started and finished in the past,
but we want emphasized duration:
so we want to show the other person the other listener
or reader that the action lasted for quite some time.
For example: He was working all
night so we want emphasize that it lated
the entire night. we also use past continuous form for an
ongoing action in the past interrupted by a sudden event.
For example I was buying a t-shirt
when I ran into her so I was
doing something and then suddenly a friend came up to me
that's when I ran into her. Please note
that for the interruption we use a simple
so we often find a past continuous
and a past simple in the same sentence with the
past continuous showing us that it was a continuing
activity and the past simple showing
the interruption of that activity. Thank you
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